World Refugee Day and Refugee Week

Refugee Week takes place every year across the world in the week around World Refugee Day on the 20th of June. In the UK, Refugee Week (June 18-24, 2018) is a nationwide program of arts, cultural and educational events that celebrate the contribution of refugees to the UK, and encourages a better understanding between communities.

Refugee Week started in 1998 as a direct reaction to hostility in the media and society in general towards refugees and asylum seekers and is now one of the leading national initiatives working to counter this negative climate.

The aims of Refugee Week are:

• To encourage a diverse range of events to be held throughout the UK, which facilitate positive encounters between refugees and the general public in order to encourage greater understanding and overcome hostility
• To showcase the talent and expertise that refugees bring with them to the UK
• To explore new and creative ways of addressing the relevant issues and reach beyond the refugee sector
• To provide information which educates and raises awareness of the reality of refugee experiences

Refugee Week is an umbrella festival, with events held by a wide range of arts, voluntary, faith and refugee community organizations, schools, student groups and more. Past events have included arts festivals, exhibitions, film screenings, theatre and dance performances, concerts, football tournaments and public talks, as well as creative and educational activities in schools.

UN Rights chief implores US to stop taking migrant children from parents

The United Nations’ top human rights official on Monday added to the mounting furor over the Trump administration’s policy of separating undocumented immigrant children from their parents, calling for an immediate halt to a practice he condemned as abuse.

United States immigration authorities have detained almost 2,000 children in the past six weeks, which may cause them irreparable harm with lifelong consequences, said Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights. He cited an observation by the president of the American Association of Pediatrics that locking the children up separately from their parents constituted “government-sanctioned child abuse.”

“The thought that any state would seek to deter parents by inflicting such abuse on children is unconscionable,” Mr. al-Hussein said.

His intervention added to an escalating chorus of condemnation from people across the political spectrum in the United States, including the former first lady Laura Bush, who called the separations “cruel” and “immoral.”

The high commissioner’s office had already condemned the practice of separating children from their parents this month, calling it a serious violation of children’s rights and international law. That drew an angry rebuke from Nikki R. Haley, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, who accused the agency of ignorance and hypocrisy.

[New York Times]

Pope presses for Yemen negotiations to avert worse humanitarian crisis

Pope Francis is pressing for negotiations involving the sides in the Yemen conflict so the humanitarian crisis doesn’t worsen. In public remarks Sunday, Francis said he was following “with worry the dramatic fate of the people of Yemen, already so exhausted from years of conflict.”

He appealed to the international community so that “no effort be spared to urgently bring to the negotiating table the sides in conflict and to avoid a worsening of the already tragic humanitarian situation.”

In Yemen, witnesses have reported that a Saudi-led coalition has carried out airstrikes on the airport in Yemen’s rebel-held port city of Hodeida. The port is the main entry point for food and aid to the country, which is already on the brink of famine.

[US News]

Europe and UNICEF team up to further assist Rohingya in Bangladesh

The European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Operations (ECHO) has provided US$ 2.6 million to UNICEF to ensure that children, adolescents and young women can live in a safe and protective environment free from Gender Based Violence (GBV) and with better access to social services.

The measures will benefit 41,500 children and adolescents living in Rohingya camps as well as local Bangladeshi people – known as the host community – who live alongside them. More than 693,000 refugees from Myanmar have arrived in Cox Bazar since August 2017 – more than half of them (an estimated 58 per cent) are children.

“This initiative will allow us to protect the most vulnerable and reduce the risks and vulnerability to further violations of their rights, such as exploitation, trafficking, gender-based violence, child marriage and child labor,” said UNICEF Bangladesh Representative, Edouard Beigbeder.

UNICEF is providing more than 182,000 children and adolescents with critical child protection services, including psychosocial support and assistance for unaccompanied children in the camps to retrace their parents. Recreational and other support mechanisms are also to be provided.

[ECHO/UNICEF]

Could the world’s worst humanitarian crisis get even worse?

The war campaign in Yemen has become a quagmire for the Saudis and their allies, who have killed thousands in bombing raids but have failed to recapture much of the country. Meanwhile, the health- care system has virtually collapsed, along with food supplies, making millions of Yemenis dependent on international aid.

The world’s worst humanitarian crisis may be about to get much worse. Some 8 million people are on the brink of famine and the worst cholera epidemic in history is raging, and now the country’s most important port has become the target of a new offensive in the three-year-old civil war. Forces backed by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are seeking to cut off and eventually capture Hodeida, a city of 700,000 that is the entry point of 70 percent of the aid shipments keeping millions of civilians alive.

The Saudis and some advocates in Washington contend that if Hodeida’s port could be seized from the Houthis, aid shipments would improve, while the smuggling of Iranian missiles would stop. But aid groups see it differently. The offensive, they say, is likely to meet stiff resistance, and even if successful could take weeks or months. Any sustained interruption in shipping to Hodeida could tip the country into famine — and make it virtually impossible to combat the spread of cholera, which has already infected more than 1 million people.

[Washington Post]

The US has lost track of 1,500 immigrant children that they separated from their parents

At a Senate hearing earlier this month, US Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Trump Administration policy will refer everyone caught crossing the border illegally for prosecution, even if they are claiming they deserve asylum or have small children. Any parents who are prosecuted as a result will be separated from their children in the process.

In April, a New York Times investigation estimated that more than 700 children, including 100 under the age of 4, had been taken from their parents at the southern border since October, citing federal Department of Homeland Security officials. The U.S. government then places these children into the homes of sponsors or caregivers.

While testifying before a Senate subcommittee on April 26, Steven Wagner, acting assistant secretary for the Administration for Children and Families, said the Office of Refugee Resettlement was not able to account for the whereabouts of 1,475 migrant children it had placed.

Now President Donald Trump is blaming Democrats for his administration’s controversial policy of taking children away from parents caught unlawfully crossing into the United States with them, a practice the White House says is a deterrent to illegal immigration.

The president’s criticism of the “horrible” policy comes less than a month after U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a “zero tolerance” approach to illegal border crossings. “If you are smuggling a child then we will prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you as required by law,” he warned.

Trump’s tweet came a day after Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., attacked his policy of splitting up children and parents. “There are many ways to describe the @realDonaldTrump policy of ripping children away from their parents at the border. It violates human rights laws. It is unAmerican. It would shock Jesus. But I think the most appropriate way to describe it is this: The policy is evil,” Lieu tweeted.

[ABC News]

Urgent humanitarian needs in the occupied Palestinian territory

The Humanitarian Fund for the occupied Palestinian territory announced the release of US$3.9 million to address urgent water, sanitation, shelter and protection needs in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt).

“The humanitarian response to the crisis is among the worst-funded globally this year,” said the Humanitarian Coordinator, Mr. Jamie McGoldrick. “With this allocation, we ensure that humanitarian partners have the resources to respond to some of the most urgent needs, but this is a stop-gap measure only and much more is needed.”

The 2018 Humanitarian Response Plan, which requires $540 million in funding, is currently only 16 per cent funded.

Over 75 per cent of the allocation targets needs in the Gaza Strip, where the already-dire humanitarian situation has been exacerbated since March 30, 2018 due to a massive rise in Palestinian casualties in the context of demonstrations.

The oPt HF is an emergency pooled fund supported in 2017 and 2018 by Belgium, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey. It is managed by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and its allocation aim is to support highly vulnerable Palestinians.

[OCHA]