The Rohingya must not become ‘forgotten victims’ says UN chief

Painting a grim picture of villages being burned to the ground and other “bone-chilling” accounts he heard from Rohingya refugees who fled violence in Myanmar, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has called on the world to answer their calls for help with real action.

The continuing plight of nearly one million Rohingya refugees driven from their homes in Myanmar was the focus of Mr. Guterres’ trip along with Jim Yong Kim, the President of the World Bank Group, during a visit last week to Bangladesh – the country where the Rohingya have found safe-haven.

The UN chief recalled one Muslim man he met who broke down in tears, describing how his eldest son was shot dead in front of him. The man’s mother was brutally murdered and his house was torched to ashes. He then took refuge in a mosque but was discovered by soldiers who abused him and burned the Koran. “Their horrific experiences defy comprehension, yet they are the reality for nearly one million Rohingya refugees,” Guterres said.

The Secretary-General explained that systematic human rights abuses by Myanmar’s security forces over the past year were “designed to instill terror in the Rohingya population, leaving them with a dreadful choice: stay on in fear of death or leave everything simply to survive.” Since late August 2017, widespread and systematic violence against Myanmar’s mainly-Muslim minority Rohingya, has forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes in Rakhine state for Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar area, just across the border.

A Global Compact on Refugees is being finalized by UN Member States, seeking to ensure that, among other things, front-line countries, like Bangladesh, are not alone in responding fleeing waves of humanity. Meanwhile, the UN and humanitarian agencies are working flat-out alongside the refugees themselves and host communities to improve conditions.

“The Rohingya people cannot become forgotten victims. We must answer their clear appeals for help with action,” concluded the UN chief.

[UN News Service]

New Walled Order: How barriers to basic services turn migration into a humanitarian crisis

A new report by the world’s largest humanitarian network is calling on governments to remove the barriers that prevent vulnerable migrants from accessing basic services and humanitarian aid.

Francesco Rocca, President of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said: “All people, regardless of immigration status, should have access to basic services and humanitarian assistance. There is no need to mistreat people to have proper border control. Preventing access to adequate food, basic health care, and legal advice about their rights is completely unacceptable. Everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect.”

IFRC’s report, “New Walled Order: How barriers to basic services turn migration into a humanitarian crisis” identifies a number of factors that prevent vulnerable migrants from accessing the support they need. The IFRC is calling on states to:

• Ensure that National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and other humanitarian agencies can provide humanitarian services to migrants irrespective of status and without fear of arrest. Such services might include legal information and advice, information on rights, first aid, basic health care and shelter, and psychosocial support.
• Create “firewalls” between public services and immigration enforcement. This involves abolishing rules that require health care providers and aid agencies to report on the people they assist to enforcement authorities.
• Proactively identify and address factors that prevent migrants from accessing essential health services.
• Ensure that domestic laws, policies, procedures and practices comply with existing obligations under international law, and address the protection and assistance needs of migrants.

[International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies]

Rescuers race to find survivors after Japan floods kill at least 114

Rescuers in Japan dug through mud and rubble on Monday, racing to find survivors after torrential rain unleashed floods and landslides that killed at least 114 people, with dozens missing.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe canceled an overseas trip to deal with Japan’s worst flood disaster since 1983, with several million people forced from their homes.

Temperatures are well above 30 Celsius (86 Fahrenheit), fueling fears of heat-stroke in areas cut off from power or water. Some 11,200 households had no electricity.

Though the persistent rain had ended, officials warned of sudden showers and thunderstorms as well as of more landslides on steep mountainsides saturated over the weekend.

Industry operations have also been hit, with Mazda Motor Corp saying it was forced to close its head office in Hiroshima on Monday. Daihatsu also suspended production on Friday at up to four plants.

[Reuters]

Illegal immigration to the US a humanitarian problem

Journalists have recently uncovered reports from a February 2017 Department of Homeland Security meeting in which Trump immigration officials argued that immediate prosecution for illegal crossings, which would separate parents from their children, would deter illegal immigration. In fact, CNN reports data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency showing that the number of illegal border crossings has actually increased since the prosecution initiative was announced.

This failure to deter illegal immigration is understandable given what we know about the circumstances. Many are fleeing Central American countries, including Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, where gang violence, crime, drug cartels and poverty leave them with little hope for a future. Parents fear their children will be forced into gangs or killed if they stay.

In fact, the number of children who come unaccompanied to the United States has increased recently, with most growth coming from Hondurus, where gang violence and homicide is the worst. It is clear that parents are willing to be separated from their children in order to give them the chance to escape. This isn’t a new phenomenon. In the 17th and 18th centuries, European families sent their children on dangerous journeys to America as unaccompanied minors and even as indentured servants in order to give them opportunities for a better life.

In light of the circumstances, it is difficult to imagine the amount of depraved cruelty our immigration process would have to inflict upon asylum-seekers in order to make staying home the more attractive option.

If legal immigration were a more legitimate option, more people would be compelled to follow the process. As it is, we have made it more and more difficult for people to seek asylum and the approval rate is notoriously low.

[Excerpts of LancasterOnline article by April Kelly-Woessner, political science professor at Elizabethtown College]

The world in crisis

Over 201 million people in 134 countries were estimated to be in need of humanitarian assistance in 2017. Conflict continued to fuel much of this need, with protracted violence and unrest continuing in many countries.

Of the 201 million people identified as in need of humanitarian assistance, 23.5% were in just three countries – Yemen, Syria and Turkey.

A small number of crises continued to receive the majority of international humanitarian assistance: 60% was channeled to 10 countries.

For the fifth consecutive year Syria was the single largest recipient of international humanitarian assistance. Response to the overspill of crises and the forced displacement of populations led to Turkey and Greece  featuring among the 10 largest recipients of humanitarian assistance for the first time.

Conflict, violence and persecution drove ever more people from their homes in 2017. The total number of people forcibly displaced grew for the sixth consecutive year to an  estimated 68.5 million. And 2.8 million more people were identified as refugees than in the previous year. Most of those forcibly displaced (62%) remained in their own countries.

[devinit.org]

Forgotten at the gates of Europe

In May 2015 the European Commission presented the European Agenda on Migration, meant to address the challenges of the increased arrivals of migrants and refugees to Europe. Three years later arrivals have decreased, and policymakers claim their plan worked.

“The reality however is that people are still dying trying to reach Europe,” says Claudia Bonamini, Europe’s policy and advocacy officer for Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS). In its latest report, “Forgotten at the gates of Europe” JRS Europe asks for a fundamental policy change towards a Common European Asylum System that lives up to its name.

The report finds that violent push-backs still happen at several EU external borders, such as between Croatia and Serbia as well as in Melilla. Even once on EU territory, people often face enormous difficulty to access asylum procedures because they have not received sufficient information, or because the authorities of EU Member States purposefully misdirect them.

In Croatia, people were told to sign forms in languages they could not understand. They thought they had applied for asylum, but instead they were pushed-back to Serbia. In Romania, people were detained without being told how they could apply for asylum. People in Greece, Italy, and Malta told JRS how they were unable to navigate asylum and immigration procedure because they were not told how, or things were in a language they did not understand.

JRS is calling for a fundamental policy shift at EU level, whereby they create safe and legal pathways for people seeking protection.

[Relief Web]