The Syrian outlook on life

The news from Syria is terrifying: The war hasn’t ended, despite Russia’s decisive intervention on behalf of Bashar al-Assad and the fall of Aleppo at the end of last year.

Refugees are still fleeing, in search of a safe haven, wherever they can.

And the West is still giving them the cold shoulder.

This is especially true of the United States, where the Trump administration is preparing a revised executive order that blocks people from seven Muslim nations entering the country. The original version banned all Syrian refugees from coming to America, indefinitely.

These people are among the most vulnerable in the world today.

[CNN]

UN says 1.4 million children at risk of dying due to famine

Nearly 1.4 million children are at “imminent risk” of death in famines in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen, the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF said on Tuesday.

People are already starving to death in all four countries, and the World Food Programme says more than 20 million lives are at risk in the next six months.

“Time is running out for more than a million children,” UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said in statement. “We can still save many lives. The severe malnutrition and looming famine are largely man-made. Our common humanity demands faster action. We must not repeat the tragedy of the 2011 famine in the Horn of Africa.”

Famine was formally declared on Monday in parts of South Sudan, which has been mired in civil war since 2013. South Sudan has also been hit by the same east African drought that has pushed Somalia back to the brink of famine. Children are also suffering from severe acute malnutrition in Yemen, where two years of war have caused economic collapse and severe restrictions on shipping. Famine has been ongoing since last year in parts of northeastern Nigeria, where the government is fighting the militant group Boko Haram.

[Reuters]

Migrants choose arrest in Canada over staying in the US

Royal Canadian Mounted Police are reporting a flurry of illegal crossings into Canada in recent months. Officials say Quebec province has seen the highest influx of people seeking asylum, with many crossing in snowy, remote areas in northern New York.

One illegal crossing area that has become particularly popular among immigrants is in Champlain, N.Y., in the northeast corner of the state. At the end of Roxham Road, there’s a big dead end and a “Road Closed” sign — but there’s also a very heavily trodden route through the snow that goes over into Canada.

At the road’s end, a young woman with an infant gets out of the taxi. She doesn’t want to talk and seems to have limited English. She hugs the baby to her chest and, with her free hand, pulls a black suitcase on wheels. As she moves toward the ditch, several Canadian police officers approach. The Canadian policeman offers to carry her baby as she makes her way through the slippery snow path. She hands the child to him and then takes the hand of another officer who helps her to the road on the Canadian side. The police bring out a child car seat and place it in their cruiser. The woman is arrested, and she and her child are driven away from the border. The whole thing takes about six minutes.

People who work with immigrants in Canada say these border-jumpers would rather be arrested in Canada than live in fear of how U.S. officials might handle their cases.

Cpl. Camille Habel, spokeswoman with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, says “Once we confirm that they’re not a threat to national security, we hand them over to [the Canadian Border Service Agency] who then start the immigration process.”

[NPR]

Donald Trump isn’t the only news event on Earth

While CNN and much of the world press focuses on Donald Trump’s antics, two United Nations reports documented events happening elsewhere that have all but gone unnoticed.

In Afghanistan, the 2016 Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict report recorded the highest number of civilian casualties in a single year since records started in 2009. There has been a 24% increase in the number of children killed and injured compared to 2015.

More human rights violations documented against members of the Rohingya community in Myanmar include the burning of houses and the destruction of property, looting, beatings, sexual violence, forced disappearances and killings. Stories include mothers seeing their children being killed, women being gang-raped by up to eight men, people being rounded up and taken away, and the army deliberately setting fire to houses with families inside.

How many of you reading know this is happening in Afghanistan or Myanmar?

People throughout the US standing up against Trump’s executive order is a welcome corrective to the rise of anti-Muslim sentiment and activity in much of Europe and the US in the last few years. However, it seems we only care about discrimination when committed by certain governments.

[The Guardian]

Paper gliders to deliver lifesaving humanitarian supplies to remote regions

Otherlab, an engineering research and development lab based in San Francisco, has created the world’s most advanced industrial paper airplanes. The paper gliders look almost like stealth fighters, capable of carrying more than two pounds of supplies like blood and vaccines to those in need. And they could totally transform humanitarian aid for people in remote regions.

The gliders are made from an inexpensive material called mycelium, designed to be aerodynamic and degradable within a matter of days.

The drones can hold canisters, “medically sensitive fluids” and batteries, delivering lifesaving items to rural areas without roads, or regions rendered inaccessible by natural disasters or war.

“We designed these to be used in areas where existing infrastructure was insufficient to get critical items — blood, medical supplies and so on — to where they needed to be,” said Mikell Taylor, Otherlab’s team lead for the project.

[Read full Mashable article]

Four ways we can strengthen humanitarian aid

In the last three decades, rates of extreme poverty and childhood mortality have fallen while access to water and schooling for the most marginalized populations has increased significantly. These achievements are not complete, perfect or irreversible. Future progress requires humanitarian agencies … to reinvent themselves by boldly pursuing what I call the four “S’s”: scale, systemic approaches, sustainability and stewardship.

Scale: Because the people in need number in the billions, our programs must stretch each dollar to serve as many as possible.

Systemic approaches: While many people picture humanitarian work as the distribution of food and medicine, such immediate aid rarely gets at the systemic causes of problems. Hunger, for example, results from myriad factors.  That is why C.R.S. uses the integral human development framework for systemic interventions.

Sustainability: We must ensure that whatever gains are made will be sustained after a development project’s funding expires. Success in this regard shifts the emphasis from what an aid agency does to what the affected community can and will do. This means investing in the capacity of local groups.

Stewardship: While the overhead costs of nonprofits receive a great deal of scrutiny, it is not the sole metric of good stewardship. Low costs do not necessarily signal that a nonprofit or government agency is making the best use of its resources; this can be discerned only through evidence-based assessments of programs.

[Excerpt of article by Carolyn Y. Woo served as president and C.E.O. of Catholic Relief Services]

Armenia sending humanitarian aid to Syria

Armenia has sent approximately 40 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Syria, the latest of  several batches sent over the course of the conflict in Syria.

Both nations have maintained economic and diplomatic ties with one another despite the conflict. More than 100,000 people of Armenian descent currently reside in Syria.

[Al Masdar News]

Trudeau meets Trump

A political odd couple, President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resolutely played up their similarities at their first meeting Monday, even as obvious differences lurked behind their public smiles.

But it was hard to escape their contrasting worldviews.

Speaking to reporters, Trump defended his restrictive refugee and immigration orders, saying that “we cannot let the wrong people in.” Trudeau, on the other hand, said Canada continues to “pursue our policies of openness.”

Trudeau later acknowledged that there are times when the two countries differ. But he said, “The last thing Canadians expect is for me to come down and lecture another country on how they chose to govern themselves.”

After Trump’s recent travel ban targeting seven Muslim-majority countries, Canada offered temporary residence to any immigrants stranded in Canada. The decision was announced by Ahmed Hussen, Canada’s immigration minister. “Let me assure those who may be stranded in Canada that I will use my authority as minister to provide them with temporary residency if they need it,” said Hussen, who was born in Somalia and came to Canada as a teenage refugee.

Despite the chaos and uncertainty sparked by Trump’s travel ban, the Canadian government, led by Justin Trudeau, refrained from directly criticizing the order. Trudeau instead posted a series of tweets highlighting the stark difference between the position espoused by the Canadian and American governments. “To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada,” Trudeau tweeted.

[CNN/The Guardian]