Massive refugee airlift underway from Central African Republic

The Central African Republic was plunged into chaos last year after a coalition of rebels ousted the president, the latest in a series of coups since it gained independence. One of the rebels became interim President, and political turmoil and violence spiraled. In November 2013, the UN warned that Central African Republic was at risk of spiraling into genocide.

At least 1,000 people have died in the violence, and some 958,000 more, many of them children, have been forced from their homes within the Central African Republic, according to the United Nations’ refugee agency, UNHCR. Nearly a quarter of the population has been displaced.

On Saturday, an operation to airlift thousands of African migrants stranded in violence-ravaged Central African Republic in dire humanitarian conditions started. The airlift, on a specially chartered plane, has been set up by the International Organization for Migration in response to the urgent need for tens of thousands of migrants to flee the country. Priority has been given to families, especially women and children.

Three charter flights to Chad will be followed by two to Mali. In the past couple of weeks, the IOM has helped other African nations including Senegal and Burkino Fas, to evacuate thousands of their citizens. The operation to fly out all the migrants stranded in the country will likely take several weeks. Many are outside the capital, making movement dangerous and access difficult.

Many will need psychological and social support to help them recover from their experience, not least because foreigners have often been the target of the violence currently tearing the Central African Republic apart.

While nearly 27,000 migrants from neighboring countries have been evacuated by their countries, at least 33,000 more who’ve asked for help from their embassies remain in urgent need of aid, the IOM said.

Humanitarian deal in Homs

The United Nations and the United States confirmed an agreement announced by Syrian rebels and the government of a planned cease-fire in the besieged Old City of Homs that would allow some people to flee and humanitarian aid to arrive for the first time in over a year.

Once the fighting halts, women, civilians over 55 and children under 15 can choose to leave the Old City if they agree not to take up arms against the government, he said.

After the first group of evacuations, Syrian troops would clear the way for a U.N. aid convoy packed with food and medicine to enter the area for the first time in more than a year.

According to SANA, the official Syrian news agency, the government would provide shelter, food and medical treatment to people who leave the Old City. In addition, the agreement calls for government forces to allow humanitarian assistance to people who remain in the besieged area, SANA reported. Valerie Amos, the U.N. emergency relief coordinator, said the cease-fire agreement would mean essential supplies for about 2,500 people in Homs.

[CNN]

A glimpse into the life of a Syrian refugee

Hundreds of refugees from Syria making the long walk to safety in Jordan, one long jagged line stretching out into the open desert.

They carried teapots and tiny gas canisters, shopping bags filled with clothes and overstuffed bundles of blankets balanced on their heads. Many held jerry cans, once full with water, now dangling empty.

The refugees came from the outskirts of Damascus, walking for days in order to escape the ugly civil war that has engulfed their country for the past three years.

Their destination, like so many thousands before them, is the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan. The numbers are staggering: Syrian refugees are now estimated to make up 10% of Jordan’s population.

The population demographics in Zaatari are skewed towards women and children but also a surprising number of elderly residents. Consider these statistics: More than half (54%) of the camp’s residents are under the age of 17. 42% of families in the camp are led by a female head of household. 3% are more than 60-years old.

Nothing can take away from the pain and loss of being a refugee. But everyone we met had a remarkable story of resilience and determination. Zaatari is a remarkable place because its residents are building a strong community out of what little they have. They build homes, invest in businesses, plant vegetable gardens and paint works of art. But every single Syrian refugee I spoke to said the same thing: if the war stopped today, I would be home tomorrow.

[CNN]

Malnourished but defiant Syrians

As nearly 600 days under siege sap the life and dignity out of the Old District in the Syrian city of Homs — leaving malnourished men with legs like noodles and soot-stained children to dig through homes turned into rubble for bits of firewood — diplomats in picturesque Geneva bicker over aid.

“The situation is unbearable and inhuman. Food, there is none. Medical supplies, there is none. Milk for children, there is none. It is beyond words.” Mohammed Abu Yahay tells CNN through a crackly Skype connection.

The Geneva peace talks seemed to matter little to residents living on perpetually empty bellies who demanded all parties put aside their differences to break the almost two-year siege of Homs rather than agree to a temporary solution from a reluctant regime.

The United States blamed the Syrian government for the dire situation, accusing it of waging a “kneel or starve campaign.” As the bitter winter cold retains its hold on the restive city, activists and residents say starvation and the lack of basic medical care claim lives regularly as Syrian troops and some opposition forces prevent the delivery of aid, according to a report from Human Rights Watch last month.

Tree leaves, grass, olives and stale grain are all that’s on the menu at many homes in the old districts of Homs, where many residents say they struggle to get just one meal a day on the table while loved ones with preventable diseases languish in a makeshift medical clinic with “medieval health care.”

“The world must help us; they can’t watch us drown in a sea of suffering, pain and death and do nothing after more than one and a half years of being under siege” the Rev. Frans, a Dutch Jesuit and longtime Syrian resident, said in broken Arabic on social media.

“I think that there is a lack of pressure from the international community on the barbaric regime. It is inhuman that they are fighting us over a loaf of bread. Cutting of water, electricity, and preventing any aid organization from entering. This situation reflects poorly on the international community to help these besieged areas,” Dr. Abo Ramez said.

[CNN]

Syrian children suffer while world shrugs

The world has devoted a great deal of diplomatic energy to securing Syria’s chemical weapons. It has yet to do the same for securing Syria’s children.

Refugees fleeing the conflict, most to Syria’s overwhelmed neighbors Jordan and Lebanon, top a whopping 2 million. Some U.N. officials expect that number to climb as high as 4 million in 2014.

More than 1.1 million of these refugees are younger than 18. Indeed, Syria’s youngest citizens are paying dearly for a war they did not create, one that is laying waste to their present and their future.

Three out of four Syrian children “have lost a close friend or family member in their country’s ongoing conflict” and “many have witnessed violence,” notes the International Rescue Committee. Charities such as IRC and Mercy Corps working with Syria’s children tell of young people isolated, lonely and struggling with the impossible task of coming to terms with all that they have seen and lost.

“If we do not act quickly, a generation of innocents will become lasting casualties of an appalling war,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said in November when releasing a report on the grim future facing Syria’s children.

“A grave consequence of the conflict is that a generation is growing up without a formal education,” the report said. “More than half of all school-aged Syrian children in Jordan and Lebanon are not in school. In Lebanon, it is estimated that some 200,000 school-aged Syrian refugee children could remain out of school at the end of the year.” They join 25 million kids of primary-school-age around the world out of school because of war.

Low educational attainment is among the strongest predictors of violence. Anyone hoping for a safer, more secure world had better start with educating children.

And yet until now, the international community’s reaction to the escalating death count and the rising number of hungry, homeless and displaced children has fallen somewhere between a shrug and a sigh.

This leaves children to pay the price. And so will the rest of us, eventually, if nothing is done to help a lost generation find a way to a more secure future.

[CNN]

Tally on Yolanda damages to the Philippines

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) reported yesterday that the death toll from super-typhoon “Yolanda” had increased to 6,155, almost two months since the monster storm brought massive devastation to central Philippines.

The latest data released by the NDRRMC showed that the addition to the number of fatalities came from Iloilo province. Among the causes of death of the victims were drowning, hit by debris/fallen tree, cardiac/cardio-pulmonary arrest, pneumonia, stroke, and multi-organ failure.

Meanwhile, the number of missing also slightly went up from 1,779 to 1,785.

The number of injured stood at 28,626.

The super-typhoon, which made several landfalls on Nov. 8, affected 3,424,593 families or 16,078,181 people in 57 provinces.

Of the total affected population, 890,895 families or 4,095,280 people were displaced, some of whom are still being served in evacuation centers.

[Manila Bulletin]

Polio woes for Syrian refugees in Lebanon and the region

The “West” and the majority of the Muslim world appear to have divergent views on two things about the Syrian civil war: the centrality of the conflict and what constitutes the “worst case scenario.” For the West, the prospect of al Qaeda or other Islamist militants prevailing is a nightmare. But for many Sunni Muslims, the nightmare is already here.

The onslaught against the Sunni majority turned Syria into the favorite destination of militant Islamists worldwide. It has provided al Qaeda, which boasts not one but two affiliates there — the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and the al Nusra Front — an opportunity to rebrand itself and given its recruitment efforts a shot in the arm.

Last week, 72 prominent Saudi clerics issued a statement calling on Muslims around the world to support a recently formed Islamist coalition in Syria known as the “Islamic Front.” The good news is that the Front does not include the two al Qaeda affiliates, and the clerics did not call on Muslims to travel to Syria. However, the characterization of the conflict as a “Jihad,” or holy war, is a troubling development.

More than 100,000 people have died in the conflict, which has turned millions more into refugees.

Now, in surroundings even dirtier than the war they escaped, Syrian refugee children in Lebanon face another potential threat: Highly contagious and potentially deadly polio.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) are attempting to vaccinate as many as 23 million children across the region. According to the WHO, vaccinations will also be carried out in other countries including Iraq, Jordan, and Turkey.

Tiny Lebanon, which neighbors Syria and has absorbed the highest concentration of refugees – over 800,000 so far — is considered to be at particular risk.