sputnik--2019-02-27--Russia Calls for Immediate Evacuation of Syrias Rukban Refugee Camp - Envoy

Russia Calls for Immediate Evacuation of Syria's Rukban Refugee Camp - Envoy

“We are suggesting a solution to the current situation and a lasting solution to the problem of Rukban: this is the evacuation of all those in the camp who express the wish to go wherever they want. All those who express that wish, of course, is the key word here", Nebenzia said, calling on all sides to "urgently start implementing this idea".  The Russian ambassador criticized a plan floated by US Deputy Representative to the UN Jonathan Cohen, who earlier in the council's session called on Russia and Syria to allow another humanitarian aid convoy to access Rukban. Nebenzia urged all parties to stop wasting time and instead reach a long-term solution for Rukban, adding that Washington's calls for more aid convoys underscore its disregard for international law.  Aid deliveries to Rukban have been severely limited in recent years because the camp is situated within the US-controlled zone surrounding its military base in At-Tanf. Nebenzia said the problems in Rukban stem from the illegal US occupation of Syrian territory, a situation that has left the camp completely closed off in a military zone.  Russia Urges US, Militant Leaders in al-Tanf to Stop Holding Refugees in Rukban Camp - MoD He noted that refugees in Rukban have been prevented from leaving, and thereby forced to reside in squalid conditions, suffering from severe food and medicine shortages and dire, unsanitary conditions. "The United States is an occupying power and in accordance with the Geneva Convention bears full responsibility for the situation in Rukban", Nebenzia said.  US envoy Cohen denied that the United States has impeded voluntary departures from the camp. "The United States insists that any process to arrange for departures be coordinated with the UN and reflect humanitarian principles", Cohen said.  Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the United States and militants under its control had forbidden internally displaced persons from leaving the Rukban camp.  Moscow Says Situation in Syrian Rukban Camp Reminds of WWII Death Camps On 19 February, Damascus, under a Russian initiative, opened two humanitarian corridors for internally displaced persons to leave the Rukban refugee camp if they choose to do so.  On 15 February, the UN and Syrian Arab Red Crescent delivered aid to the Rukban refugee camp for the first time in months. The Russian and Syrian Joint Coordination Committees on repatriation of Syrian refugees said that most of the aid was likely to be diverted to US-backed militants in the area.


sputnik--2019-03-10--Russia Syria Point Out Contradictory US Stance on Refugees From Rukban Camp

Russia, Syria Point Out Contradictory US Stance on Refugees From Rukban Camp

"A representative of the US-led international coalition against ISIS* in Syria Sean Ryan said there are no obstacles to the free movement of Rukban camp refugees. At the same time, the first Secretary of the US Embassy in Amman, Alex Hawke, authorised to discuss the problems of the Rukban camp, has outlined a number of conditions to allow residents of the camp to freely leave its territory", the statement said.  The statement also pointed to the "hypocrisy" of the United States, which claims to be committed to humanitarian values, but at the same time does nothing to implement them.  "Based on the principles of humanism, confirmed not by words, but by concrete actions, we once again call on the world community to open its eyes to the situation in the Rukban camp, not to succumb to US assurances about the care shown to ordinary Syrians, to believe only the facts and real deeds", the statement added.  Russia and Syria have urged the United States to release Rukban's residents and ensure their unimpeded exit from the camp to the places of their permanent residence.  *Daesh (also known as ISIS/ISIL/IS) is a terrorist group banned in Russia


sputnik--2019-04-05--Almost 1000 Refugees Left Syrias Rukban Camp on 4 April - Russian Military

Almost 1,000 Refugees Left Syria's Rukban Camp on 4 April - Russian Military

"On 4 April, 985 civilians left the Rukban refugee camp through the Jeleb checkpoint. They were transported to temporary residence sites in the city of Homs", Kupchishin said at a daily briefing.  The general stressed that the refugees were provided with all necessary assistance, including the provision of food and temporary accommodation.  The Russian military also set up a humanitarian corridor and the Jleb mobile checkpoint in order to prevent a humanitarian disaster in the Rukban refugee camp, Kupchishin stated.  The Russian military also set up a humanitarian corridor and the Jleb mobile checkpoint in order to prevent a humanitarian disaster in the Rukban refugee camp.


sputnik--2019-06-23--Syrian Refugees in Idlib Receive Over 2 Tonnes of Humanitarian Aid From Russian Military

"A decision to provide humanitarian assistance was made. More than 2 tonnes of food were delivered", Dzhembalayev said.  Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said last week that the refugee issue in northwestern Syria can be resolved after a Russian-Turkish memorandum on creating a demilitarized zone in the Syrian province of Idlib is fully implemented.  During the September 2018 talks in the Russian resort city of Sochi, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, agreed to set up a demilitarized zone in Idlib along the contact line between the armed opposition and government forces.  The northwestern Idlib province is home to scores of various groups, including the Turkey-backed National Front for Liberation and the Jabhat al-Nusra terror group. Around 30,000 militants, including foreign mercenaries, are reportedly operating in the region.  The UN regional humanitarian coordinator for the Syria crisis, Panos Moumtzis, has warned that up to 2 million refugees could flee to Turkey if fighting in northwestern Syria continues.  As the Syrian government has regained control over most of the country's territories that were seized by terrorists, it is now focused on creating favorable conditions for repatriating refugees.  Moscow is assisting Damascus in the process, along with providing humanitarian aid to civilians and being a guarantor of the ceasefire.  *Nusra front is a terrorist group banned in Russia and many other countries.


sputnik--2019-12-12--Bolivia's Ex-President Morales Arrives in Argentina as Refugee - Argentine Foreign Minister

Former Bolivian President Evo Morales has arrived in Argentina as a refugee, Argentine Foreign Minister Felipe Sola said.  Sola added that Morales arrived in the country together with former Bolivian Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera after the Argentine Foreign Ministry granted them asylum the day before. The Argentine Interior Ministry will process their refugee status in the next few hours, he said.  According to Sola, once Morales' refugee status is confirmed, he will be prohibited from making political statements.  Last week, Morales was in Mexico where he received asylum after his government collapsed in November following a disputed presidential election where he secured a fourth term. Mass protests broke out in Bolivia after the results of the election were announced.  Opposition lawmaker Jeanine Anez took over as interim president, while Morales characterised the situation as a coup.


tass--2019-02-15--Temporary accommodation centers for refugees from Rukban camp to open on February 19

MOSCOW, February 15. /TASS/. The Russian Center for Reconciliation of the Opposing Sides in Syria and the Syrian government will set up temporary accommodation centers for refugees from the Rukban camp, Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov told reporters on Friday.  "In order to save refugees coming from Rukban camp, the Russian Center for Reconciliation of the Opposing Sides and the Syrian government will open temporary accommodation centers in the Jleb and Jabal al-Ghurab areas on February 19," he said, adding that warm accommodation, hot meals, basic necessities and medical assistance would be available there.  According to Konashenkov, motor vehicles will be allocated to safely take refugees to the places of their permanent residence in areas controlled by the Syrian government.  The Rukban camp is located in the Al-Tanf security zone, where a US military base is stationed. Opposition militants do not allow the United Nations and the Syrian government to deliver humanitarian aid to the camp. According to the World Health Organization, the camp currently hosts about 40,000 refugees, mostly women and children.  Konashenkov also said that US-backed militants forcibly prevent refugees from leaving the Rukban camp in Syria, where they live in inhuman conditions.  According to him, what members of international humanitarian organizations saw in the Rukban refugee camp "can be described in only one word - horrible." Konashenkov noted that the amount of aid sent to the camp "pales in the shadow of the predicaments tens of thousands of Syrians are facing, as they are forced to live in inhuman conditions."  "A poll conducted by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, showed that most refugees are being forcibly prevented from leaving the Rukban camp by US-backed militants and do not know that they can safely return to where they used to live," Konashenkov pointed out.  In other media


tass--2019-03-16--About 17 million Syrian refugees willing to return home - reconciliation center

About 1.7 million Syrian refugees willing to return home - reconciliation center

MOSCOW, March 16. /TASS/. About 1.7 Syrian refugees, officially registered in foreign countries, are willing to return to their homeland, the Russian center for reconciliation of conflicting sides and refugee migration monitoring in Syria said in a daily bulletin on Saturday.  "It is estimated that 1,712,264 Syrian nationals in ten countries voiced their desire to come back home. Since September 30, 2015, in total 389,735 Syrians have returned to their homes from abroad," the bulletin said.  According to the UN Refugee Agency, about 6.675 million registered Syrian refugees are temporarily living in 45 countries. Of those, Turkey hosts more than a half, or 3.6 million people, Lebanon - about one million Syrians and another 700,000 are staying in Jordan.  "Syria’s government is making active efforts to increase the efficiency of the process for the return of Syrian refugees from foreign states," the center added.  In other media


tass--2019-04-16--Russian Lebanese top diplomats discuss Syrian refugee issue

Russian, Lebanese top diplomats discuss Syrian refugee issue

MOSCOW, April 15. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Lebanese counterpart Gebran Bassil have noted the importance of joint efforts aimed at returning Syrian refugees back home, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Monday.  "[The ministers] have stressed the importance of developing joint efforts on aiding the process of returning Syrian refugees that are currently in Libya, back home," the foreign ministry said.  Lavrov had reaffirmed Russia’s support of Lebanon's territorial integrity. The top diplomats also discussed the key aspects of developing Russian-Lebanese relations, including the expansion of mutually beneficial trade-economic and humanitarian relations.  Bassil is currently in Moscow for the fifth session of the Russian-Arab Cooperation Forum.  In other media


tass--2019-05-29--Number of refugees at Syrias Al-Hawl camp on the rise over past months

Number of refugees at Syria’s Al-Hawl camp on the rise over past months

MOSCOW, May 29. /TASS/. The number of refugees staying at Syria’s Al-Hawl camp in northern Syria has exceeded 73,000, growing seven-fold over the past four months, the heads of the Russian and Syrian inter-agency coordination headquarters, Mikhail Mizintsev and Hussein Makhlouf, said in a joint statement on Wednesday.  According to the Russian and Syrian statement, people are forced to live in unsanitary conditions leading to the outbreaks of diseases.  "The situation is worse at the Al-Hawl camp on the US-controlled territory in the Al-Hasaka Governorate, which has been affected by the seven-fold growth in the number of residents over the past four months," the document said.  Earlier, the heads of the Russian and Syrian coordination headquarters noted that more than $27 mln was needed to provide assistance to the residents of the Al-Hawl camp. Head of the Russian Center of the Reconciliation of the Opposing Sides in Syria Viktor Kupchishin said that between 10 and 20 people die at this camp every day.  In other media


tass--2019-06-17--Russian military provides humanitarian aid to refugees from Syrias Idlib

Russian military provides humanitarian aid to refugees from Syria’s Idlib

"They need help for they are not only facing welfare issues but psychological problems as well," he said.  LATAKIA /Syria/, June 17. /TASS/. The temporary accommodation centers in the Syrian province of Latakia have received refugees from the Idlib de-escalation zone where military activities are ongoing, Spokesman for the Russian Center for Reconciliation of the Opposing Sides in Syria Sergei Smolinsky told reporters, adding that the Russian military had provided humanitarian aid to the refugees.  Officers from the Russian Center continue to distribute food kits and bedding among refugees, while military doctors provide them with medical assistance.  According to Idlib Governor Fadi Sadun, the authorities are determined to make everything possible to encourage people to return to their homes. "Many families left Idlib. According to our data, as many as 7,500 refugees reside in Latakia, 11,000 found shelter in Hama, while others moved to Homs, Damascus and other cities. Our goal is to bring them back and we will make every effort to that end. The process will begin as soon as the situation in Idlib improves," he said.  In accordance with a decision made by Russia, Iran and Turkey - the guarantors of the Syrian ceasefire - de-escalation zones were set up in Syria in May 2017. They include the Idlib Province, some parts of its neighboring areas in the Latakia, Hama and Aleppo provinces, Eastern Ghouta, as well as some areas in the Daraa and al-Quneitra provinces in southern Syria. Damascus took control of three of the four zones in 2014, but the zone covering the Idlib province and certain parts of the Latakia, Hama and Aleppo provinces is still controlled by terrorists from the Jabhat al-Nusra terror group (outlawed in Russia).  Head of the Russian Center for Reconciliation Major General Viktor Kupchishin said earlier that the Suran checkpoint had been established to secure the exit of civilians from the Idlib de-escalation zone. According to recent data, 40,000 to 80,000 people are ready to leave the area. Temporary accommodation has been set up for them in the provinces of Hama, Homs and Deir ez-Zor.


tass--2019-06-18--Russian diplomats discuss Syrian refugees with Lebanese parliament speaker

BEIRUT, June 18. /TASS/. Russia's Special Envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentyev and Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin have discussed with Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri the ways to resolve the issues facing Syrian refugees. The talks were productive, Lavrentyev said after the meeting.  "We have arrived in Beirut to discuss the Syrian crisis and, namely, the ways to resolve the issues of Syrian refugees currently in Lebanon, with the Lebanese leadership," the Russian envoy said. According to him, this topic will be discussed during the upcoming talks with Lebanese President Michel Aoun and Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri.  Lavrentyev said that it is also important to discuss "what Russia can do to alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people and the heavy burden that befell Lebanon."


tass--2019-07-04--UN special envoy says refugees in Syria skyrocketing due to Idlib hostilities

MOSCOW, July 4. /TASS/. The number of internally displaced persons and refugees in Syria is snowballing due to the continued fighting in the province of Idlib, UN Secretary-General Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen said in an exclusive interview with TASS.  According to him, the stories of these refugees mirror the crux of the Syrian tragedy. "Sadly, we continue to see refugee and IDP trends moving in the wrong direction - and the fighting in Idlib is adding, not reducing, their numbers," the diplomat pointed out.  "The Syrian refugees I have met with and continue to consult - and the UN surveys refugees regarding their perceptions of and intentions to return - all say that most do want to eventually return home," Pedersen stressed. "But for now, not many are. And the reality is that many of them have concerns about returning at present, because it touches on their fears for their personal safety and that of their loved ones."  This is precisely the reason why the United Nations is insisting that the refugees return voluntarily, safely and in accordance with international legal standards. "I am convinced that as part of building trust and confidence, more can be done to help remove obstacles and create a better climate for returns," the UN special envoy underlined.  Pedersen also called to be mindful of the responsibility that Syria’s neighbor countries like Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon assumed and continue to bear for the lives of millions of Syrians.


tass--2019-12-06--The Refugee Camps photo project

The Refugee Camps photo project

According to the UN, more than 470,000 Palestinian refugees are registered in Lebanon. These refugees are the people who left their homes during the Arab-Israeli War of 1948-1949, with several generations of their descendants included. The Beirut camps that they have been living in for 70 years already, have long ago morphed into cramped city slums where poverty, overcrowding, and streets filled with trash, along with poor infrastructure reign supreme. Up until now, there has hardly been any hope for the refugees to return to their homes given the Arab-Israeli impasse. In this joint photo project, TASS and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) will present the hardships of people who have not found their appropriate homes.  Burj Barajneh’s streets are so narrow that driving cars along them is utterly impossible, so the locals use motorbikes.  A view of the Shatila Refugee Camp from the roof a former hospital. According to various estimates, 11,000-40,000 people inhabit an area of less than a square kilometer.  A refugee’s apartment in the Sabra district, adjacent to the Shatila Camp. Previously a hospital, it is now inhabited by Palestinian families. The bulk of these apartments just have bare walls and floors.  A boy in one of the houses at the Shatila Camp. Playing on such crumbling staircases in these makeshift shelters is quite dangerous.  A market at the Shatila Refugee Camp. A banner with political slogans stretched out over a bazaar’s market stalls, decked with Fatah (the Palestinian National Liberation Movement) flags and images of Palestinians killed in conflicts.  An elderly Palestinian woman at the Shatila Camp. Locals are usually very interested in foreign guests and permit them to take photos. Visitors from the outside are expected to observe modesty and reverence: one needs to cover their heads with anything they have.  Construction work at one of the houses at the Burj Barajneh Refugee Camp. The construction of new residential premises is often very chaotic, with essential standards failing to be observed.  A shop at the Burj Barajneh Refugee Camp. There are lots of them here, owners buy goods in bulk in Beirut. There are posters of Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas on many walls.  The Shatila Camp’s nooks and crannies. Despite all the hardships, people try to brighten up the harsh reality with vivid colors. There are simple cafes here and even beauty salons.  Children at a garbage dump at the Shatila Camp. Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are prohibited from working in dozens of fields, their access to medical care and education is limited. The camp’s inhabitants live in extremely poor conditions and can barely make ends meet.  Pets at the Shatila Camp sometimes pop up in unexpected places. On the roof of a house, you can easily find a chicken coop, while sheep can be found devouring leftovers at an enormous market dump.


tass--2019-12-21--Russian servicemen distribute 1,5 tonnes of food to refugees in Syria

TARTUS, December 21. /TASS/. Russian servicemen have provided assistance to 250 Syrians in the Al-Hamidiyah refugee camp in the Syrian province of Tartus. The Syrians fled from militants in the Idlib de-escalation zone through the humanitarian corridor in Abu al-Duhur set up by Russian and Syrian servicemen.  The Russian Center for reconciliation of the conflicting sides told reporters that Russian servicemen handed out 250 food sets with a total weight of around 1.5 tonnes. The Russian reconciliation center noted that such humanitarian operation has been held for the first time.  Refugees have been living in the tent camp for around four years, and all of them come from the village near Abu al-Duhur in the Idlib province.  "Thanks to the Russian people and the Russian army, with the support of the Syrian army, we managed to avoid big casualties among the population. In the times when militants from several terrorist organizations threatened us all at once and attacked our whole village, we thought that we are left with terror one on one. Everyone was killed, regardless of their faith or political views," head of the refugee camp community Maruf Jatul told reporters.  Since the start of the settlement process in Syria, Russian servicemen have carried out over 2,000 humanitarian operations and distributed almost 6,000 tonnes of food to people in need.


thedailyrecord--2019-11-06--Support given to refugees living in Rutherglen

In total, 170 individuals – including children born here – have been helped to escape the civil war which has seen almost 13 million people displaced.  Last Wednesday, refugee resettlement programme advisor Andrea Sinclair spoke to the council’s equal opportunities forum about the resettlement programme.  She said: “The families are geographically all over South Lanarkshire. Up to 240 individuals will be resettled in South Lanarkshire by March 2020.  “It is a big learning curve for them and for us. The job is really about thinking if you went to a foreign country and had nothing, what would you need.  “We work with families for what they need us for but the average is between six or 12 months.”  The Syrian Civil War began in March 2011 and the UK began resettling refugees in December 2015.  By March 2020, up to 3000 Syrians will have been re-homed in Scotland through the resettlement scheme which is funded by the Home Office.  To date , 11 families have settled in the Rutherglen and Cambuslang area and been supported to settle into new homes, communities, schools and work places.  Ms Sinclair outlined the process South Lanarkshire’s four-man resettlement team go through to help refugees settle in to their new homes .  She said: “It can take a while, lots of work goes into it. It can be quite a slow process.”  For the 5.6 million refugees of the conflict, the majority are currently in neighbouring countries including Turkey and Lebanon.  For those who are resettled in the UK, the process starts long before they step foot on a plane.  Lots of paper work has to be filled out and the resettlement team liaise with the Home Office to find out as much as possible about the family they will be working with in the months that follow.  The resettlement team then contact the housing department, registered social landlords and the police to find a suitable home.  Health services, schools and the DWP are all contacted to identify any issues that may crop up.  An intensive two-week period follows when the families arrive. That can include emergency health treatment if any unknown problems come to light.  Bank accounts are opened and benefits applied for so the family have a source of income until they can settle in and get jobs.  If necessary, English lessons are also set up and help to quit smoking offered as the cost of smoking in Scotland is far greater than in Syria.  Andrea commended families throughout South Lanarkshire who she described as ‘fantastic’ neighbours to the Syrian families settling in to their new homes.  A number have already gone into employment - including two with the council - or obtained an apprenticeship.  Several have gone to college and university to further their studies and one was named the British Heart Foundation’s volunteer of the year.  The “Syrian Scots” as Andrea calls them keep in touch with each other over WhatsApp and they have been so grateful to their new communities that many give up their time to help out.


thedailyrecord--2019-11-07--Teenage Syrian refugee who settled in Hamilton is Young Volunteer of the Year

A young Syrian refugee who has settled in Hamilton has been honoured with a prestigious volunteer award.  Mohamad Najjar fled the war in Syria with his parents but sadly lost his dad to a heart attack before they reached safety and the opportunity to settle in South Lanarkshire.  The 18-year-old has since been determined to pursue his dream of becoming a doctor and has been volunteering at the British Heart Foundation (BHF) store in Hamilton.  He was, last month, given the title of BHF UK Young Volunteer of the Year.  South Lanarkshire Council have helped support Mohamad and his mother as they build a new life in Scotland.  And the council hosted a celebration event to honour the young Syrian refugee being named as a British Heart Foundation Volunteer of the Year.  Depute chair of Housing and Technical Resources, Councillor Stephanie Callaghan, said: “We are absolutely delighted that Mohamad has received this well-deserved recognition as the BHF UK Young Volunteer of the Year. He is a very hard working and committed young man who is determined to make a real contribution to society.”  The council’s executive director of Housing and Technical Resources, Daniel Lowe, said: “Mohamad became involved with the British Heart Foundation as a volunteer after our refugee resettlement team supported him in applying to work at his local branch so we are very proud to see what a fantastic job he is doing with them.  “He saw volunteering as a great chance for him to improve his English so that he can pursue his dream of becoming a doctor and has now secured paid work two days a week as a furniture restorer at the store.”  Mohamad has said that settling into a new country was a challenging experience at first, but volunteering has helped him make new friends and feel part of his local community.  Annie Cunningham, regional manager at the British Heart Foundation, said: “In a relatively short space of time, Mohamad has become an integral member of our Hamilton store team, always on hand to help with a smile for everyone.  “His hard working, friendly nature is so inspiring after everything he has gone through that we weren’t surprised when he was chosen as the face of our national volunteer recruitment campaign. We hope his story will help shake off the stereotypes that surround volunteering and encourage people to discover for themselves the life changing effects of becoming a volunteer.”

reporters@dailyrecord.co.uk (Shirley  Bartynek)


theduran--2019-07-02--US Government Tops All for Creating Refugees

On June 19th, Statistica headlined “Number of forcibly displaced people reaches new high”, and when one looks at the data, one finds an even bigger story which stands behind those numbers:  This new report from the United Nations documents Statistica’s headline, and it proves that America’s regime-change operations have actually created around half of the world’s refugees. It proves that America’s penchant for invading and trying to overthrow the governments that its billionaires want to replace (“regime-change”) has been by far the biggest of all single causes of refugees worldwide, vastly higher than any other government. Regardless of how bad those other governments might possibly be, the US regime is far worse — at least as being the cause, the creator, of the world’s refugee problems.  Consider the countries that the US regime has recently regime-changed or attempted to:  The US regime invaded Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003, Syria in 2012-2019, and has been applying, in order to overthrow the Government of Venezuela, strangulating economic sanctions. All of those four target-countries (Syria, Venezuela, Iraq, and Afghanistan) lead the list of nations that are bleeding the most refugees. The US regime’s “regime-change” operations abroad are therefore certainly the leading cause of the world’s refugee-crisis.  That’s the big news in the new UN report, though it is news that the report itself ignores.  The biggest of these crises in 2018 were Syria and Venezuela, which were the US regime’s most recent regime-change operations. But Afghanistan and Iraq are also among the top bleeders of refugees — even now, over 15 years after the US regime had invaded them.  On 26 January 2019, Britain’s Independent headlined “Venezuela crisis: Former UN rapporteur says US sanctions are killing citizens: ‘Modern-day economic sanctions and blockades are comparable with medieval sieges of towns’” and reported:  Mr De Zayas, a former secretary of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) and an expert in international law, spoke to The Independent following the presentation of his Venezuela report to the HRC in September. He said that since its presentation the report has been ignored by the UN and has not sparked the public debate he believes it deserves. “Sanctions kill,” he told The Independent, adding that they fall most heavily on the poorest people in society, demonstrably cause death through food and medicine shortages, lead to violations of human rights and are aimed at coercing economic change.  In order for the US regime to blame Venezuela’s Government 100% for Venezuela’s problems including the economic shortages that result from the US regime’s sanctions, the US regime stages attempts to send aid to the Venezuelan people, and this aid is, of course, blocked by Venezuela’s Government, because it is just the aggressor’s PR stunt — the US regime’s effort to take over the country in a ‘kind’ way. (After all, Hitler claimed to love the “Volk,” even as he served the interests of Germany’s armaments-firms and the billionaires who controlled them.) However, if the aggressor had honestly wanted to help Venezuelans, it wouldn’t be applying such strangulating economic sanctions, which include penalties against countries that trade with Venezuela — an economic blockade against Venezuela.  Here are highlights in the new report from the UN:  The report says that in 2018, there were “13.6 million newly displaced” persons.  “Altogether, more than two thirds (67 per cent) of all refugees worldwide came from just five countries:”  However, this chaotic UN report also states that:  At the end of 2018, Syrians continued to be the largest forcibly displaced population, with 13.0 million people living in displacement. … Colombians were the second largest group, with 8.0 million forcibly displaced, most of them (98 per cent) inside their country at the end of 2018.  Presumably, the reason why Colombia does’t show on the list of “newly displaced” is that most of its “8.0 million forcibly displaced” occurred during the civil war there, which peaked in 2009.  “Figure 17 | Major recipient countries of new asylum applications | 2017-2018” shows that pending asylum-applications are the highest in US, second-highest is in Peru (mainly from Venezuela resulting from America’s economic sanctions against Venezuela), third-highest is in Germany (mainly from Arabic lands that America invaded), fourth-highest is in France (mainly from Arabic lands that America invaded), and fifth-highest is in Turkey (mainly from Arabic lands that America invaded).  In other words: four of those five countries are lands where America’s strangulating economic sanctions, and invasions, by America’s own troops and by its proxy-forces such as Al Qaeda and other ‘rebels’, drove millions of people out. Though the confusing report doesn’t note it, most of that “highest in US” asylum-applications come from the US regime’s banana republics — Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador — where the US trained death squads etc. created (or at least encouraged) the problems, at least a decade or more ago. Consequently, even in some nations where the US regime didn’t create refugees by means of invasions, it created many by coups and other means.  “Figure 18 | Major source countries of new asylum-seekers | 2017-2018” shows that in 2018, the highest number of new asylum-applicants were from Venezuela, second-highest were from Afghanistan, third-highest were from Syria, and fourth-highest were from Iraq. All of those are lands that suffer from the US regime’s past and current aggressions. (Of course, everybody expects Iran to be the next.)  Venezuelan refugees and asylum-seekers grew in number during 2018. The broader movement of Venezuelans through the region and beyond, increasingly took on the characteristics of a refugee situation, with some 3.4 million living outside Venezuela by the end of 2018, as more than 3 million Venezuelans left their homes, travelling mainly elsewhere in Latin America and the Caribbean. “This is the biggest exodus in the region’s recent history, and one of the biggest displacement crises in the world.” It could turn out to be even worse than Colombia’s was. The report notes:  “When my nine-month-old daughter died because of the lack of medicines, doctors or treatment, I decided to take my family out of Venezuela before another one of my children died. Diseases were getting stronger than us. I told myself, either we leave or we die.” – Eulirio Baes, a 33-year-old indigenous Warao from Delta Amacuro in Venezuela. He abandoned the Warao’s ancestral lands and took his entire family to Brazil after three relatives died.  Lebanon continued to host the largest number of refugees relative to its national population. 1 in 6 people there was a refugee. Jordan (1 in 14) and Turkey (1 in 22) ranked second and third, respectively. Of course, those lands receive mainly Syrian refugees.  At the end of 2018, Syrians continued to be the largest forcibly displaced population, with 13.0 million people living in displacement, including 6,654,000 refugees, 6,184,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) and 140,000 asylum-seekers. Colombians were the second largest group, with 8.0 million forcibly displaced, most of them (98 per cent) still living inside their country at the end of 2018. The top two foreign recipients of refugees from Colombia were Spain and Ecuador. As previously noted, Colombia’s refugees were generated by the lengthy civil war there, which peaked in 2009. The following visual, which is the most comprehensible part of this chaotic (and in places uninterpretable) UN report, doesn’t show Colombia, because these were the refugee-flows only for the year of 2018:  That visual is around half of the interpretable content in the entire 28-page UN report. It’s a visual way of showing that the US regime’s regime-change operations produce around half of the entire world’s refugee-problem. The only US Presidential candidate who even so much as just mentions America’s “regime-change wars” (and she is strongly against them) is Tulsi Gabbard, and she currently scores the support of fewer than 1% of America’s Democrats in that Party’s Presidential primary polls. So, at least America’s Democrats are overwhelmingly unconcerned about their country’s causing around half of the entire world’s refugee crisis. And there is no indication that America’s Republican voters are more concerned about it than the Democratic voters are. Americans, evidently, don’t care about this matter. At least, not yet.


theguardianuk--2019-01-24--Jonas Mekas how a Lithuanian refugee redefined American cinema

Jonas Mekas: how a Lithuanian refugee redefined American cinema

“There is no other way of breaking the frozen cinematic ground than a complete derangement of the official cinematic senses.” So wrote the film-maker, archivist, cine-activist, ceaseless proselytizer, art-world provocateur and avant-garde impresario Jonas Mekas in 1959 (paraphrasing Rimbaud, as any good beatnik should). More than any other single figure – more than any other 10, really – Mekas, who has died aged 96, wielded the pickaxe, broke that ground and remade American cinema from the shattered clods and shards the process yielded.  Mekas and his brother Adolfas were Lithuanian refugees who spent two years in slave labor camps in Nazi Germany and five more in post-war displacement camps in West Germany, before emigrating to New York City in 1950 (a moment Jonas greeted, with his characteristic naif’s exuberance, as one of shimmering ecstasy). Back home, Jonas had been one of Lithuania’s most celebrated young poets; after some weeks in New York, he bought his first Bolex16 mm camera and began work in an altogether different realm of poetic endeavor.  The brothers founded one of the great American movie journals, the quarterly Film Culture, in 1954 – at a time when mainstream culture did not think those two words belonged next to each other. The quarterly was a forum for the exchange of ideas and information about the emergent avant-garde cinema that would convulse the art and movie worlds for three decades: the new American cinema, as Mekas dubbed it, or American underground film, as it is now more commonly known. In Film Culture and his weekly column in the Village Voice (1959-1981), Mekas for years banged the drum for other and minor, alternative and iconoclastic kinds of film-making: a cinema, as he called it, “less perfect and more free”. His ecumenical approach to film culture, by no means characteristic of the wider, often schismatic avant-garde for which he was the foremost impresario, was part of his saintly appeal: if you were making film-art that was personal and sincerely conceived, Mekas was on your side, come what may.  He also was responsible for securing exhibition venues in the scuzzier precincts of the old East Village throughout the late-50s and 1960s. He established Anthology Film Archives in 1970 and made it into a repository for fresh, radical, and dissenting forms of film-making. (These days, it’s a kind of establishment force of its own, now that official-culture sponsors have largely withdrawn funding support from avant-garde film-makers.) The radical new film-makers of the early 60s had been hassled from pillar to post by New York’s bluenose cops for serially frightening the horses. A screening of Jack Smith’s Flaming Creatures and Jean Genet’s Un Chant D’Amour was busted under obscenity laws, one of several occasions when Mekas found himself proselytizing to a courtroom rather than his readership. Anthology was also a refuge from that kind of nonsense, a safe space to be weird in.  A poet, an exile subject to the universal variant of homesickness, truly a nowhere man, Mekas was nonetheless as ubiquitous as Zelig: Jackie Kennedy was a friend, as was John Lennon, via Yoko Ono’s filmic side projects, and Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac were friends and occasional collaborators. The film-makers he befriended and championed represent the full range of the American avant-garde, from Jack Smith, Taylor Mead and Andy Warhol to Robert Frank, Barbara Rubin, James Broughton and Stan Brakhage.  Mekas’ film-making style, he once said, was a direct result of his herculean efforts and packed schedule as a radical-culture mafioso. He was so busy that he often shot in short fragments, in diary or sketchbook style. “I had only bits of time to shoot only bits of film. All of my personal work became like notes,” he said in a lecture at New York University in 1978. His earlier movies, Guns of the Trees, described by J Hoberman in Midnight Movies as “a militantly disjointed expression of beatnik discontent, complete with stridently poetic interludes by Allen Ginsberg”, and The Brig, a documentary filming of a performance of the Living Theater’s aggressive and harrowing crowd-play, gave way to the style Mekas perfected in his greatest masterpiece, 1971-2’s Memories of a Journey to Lithuania. It unfolds in simple, often intoxicatingly beautiful poetic moments: the grass blowing in the wind, a friend playing the banjo, children singing, the village Mekas is from, the camp where he was a slave in Hamburg, all interleaved with title cards conveying Mekas’ characteristic dazed-beatnik euphoria. Mekas reworked much of this footage (and that of his earlier diary piece, Walden) over and over again, into subsequent diary-movies including Lost, Lost, Lost (1976) and As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Moments of Great Beauty (2008), all of them gorgeous and indelible.  The American avant-garde cinema of the 1960s has long since been engulfed – as silent cinema also was – by the forward march of film history. But in his now-submerged Atlantean realm, Mekas was truly Poseidon with a trident, an impish poet who seemed immortal. As more than one friend observed this morning: “I thought he’d never die.” And he never will.


theguardianuk--2019-02-09--Franco refugees still haunted by the past We were cold hungry and scared

Franco refugees still haunted by the past: ‘We were cold, hungry and scared’

It is 80 years since one of Europe’s worst – and least known – refugee crises, but memories of the Retirada (or withdrawal) are still vivid for Madeleine Morena. Her family were among 500,000 Spaniards who fled across the eastern Pyrenees to France when Barcelona fell to Franco’s forces near the end of the Spanish civil war on 26 January 1939, triggering one of the greatest exoduses of modern times.  Photos and documentary footage show the incredible sight of half a million people pouring towards the border towns of Puigcerdà in Spain, and Prats-de-Mollo and Le Perthus in France – women and children, Republican fighters carrying weapons, members of the International brigades. The local French newspaper, L’Indépendant, described “a haunting cohort of civilians, armed soldiers, vehicles and animals”.  “I was six years old when Barcelona fell,” says Morena, speaking in the village of Vinça, nestling in the foothills of the Pyrenees. “My father and uncle were Republican fighters so we had to flee our village near the French border. I left with my mother, brother, aunt, and grandparents. My grandfather was furious, saying: ‘Why do we have to leave? I’ve done nothing wrong.’ Everyone was panicking and I was very scared. We knew we were in danger. We just took clothes and a few possessions. I had my doll.  “The roads gave out near France so we had to walk over the Col D’Ares pass. It was bitterly cold and there was snow. We had to abandon our belongings, we couldn’t carry them. We found a hut to sleep in. The man who owned it came. It turned out he was a distant relation and in the morning he took me on his shoulders and we walked into France.”  Numerous events will commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Retirada, which came to an end on 13 February 1939 when Franco’s army reached the French border. There will be photo displays on Argelès beach, exhibitions in every village near former camps, lectures, performances, and a new website. But for many years there has been silence and denial. “The history of the Retirada is a work in progress,” says Agnès Sajaloli, director of a memorial at Rivesaltes, near Perpignan, which served as an internment camp from where thousands were sent to their deaths. “We still don’t know the details. Everyone involved had a different story.”  Once the refugees arrived in France the official reception was hostile. The French authorities opened the borders until Franco’s troops, in pursuit of the Republicans, reached Le Perthus. But they were completely unprepared for the numbers: there were no provisions, no sanitation, and no shelter from harsh mountain weather for exhausted and demoralised refugees. They were given one loaf between five people and a small cup of water at 3pm, nothing else.  At Prats-de-Mollo, where Morena’s family arrived, many children died as a result of the cold. Soldiers were disarmed and the refugees were first corralled and then dispersed to camps. The French used Senegalese soldiers for the job. Morena’s family were taken to a nearby holding camp while fighters and boys over 14 were transported to hastily opened camps on the inhospitable plains around Perpignan. “They were treated worse than prisoners of war,” says Spanish civil war historian David Wingeate Pike. “They were treated like criminals.”The most notorious camps were on the beaches of Argelès, Saint-Cyprien and Le Barcarès – prone to strong winds, stinging sand storms and violent extremes of temperature. “These beach camps were terrible places,” says Helen Graham, professor of Spanish history at Royal Holloway, University of London. “They were just sand and barbed wire. They had no shelter except tents. There was a problem of fresh water, there were no washing and toilet facilities – the sea had to do for everything. The people who arrived here were already ill, so there was an immediate problem with dysentery and typhoid. Many died.”  None of the refugees were released unless they could get “sponsorship” from a legitimate person outside. But the rightwing press whipped up local hostility, claiming most internees were criminals or seditious communists, mocking them for complaining about rations.  The camps were still there when the second world war broke out in autumn 1939, still there when France fell in 1940, and then became part of the apparatus of Vichy’s collaborationist regime. This brought another 50,000 prisoners to the area, mainly Jews and other so-called undesirables: gypsies, gays and communists. To cope with this influx, the Spanish prisoners were used as labourers to convert 600 acres of military barracks at Rivesaltes into an internment camp. Sajaloli says: “Rivesaltes became a camp where different groups of ostracised people were held in harsh conditions. Over 2,000 Jews were sent to death camps from here.”  Antonio de la Fuente y Ferraz, 89, is another survivor whose memories are still raw. The son of a Republican fighter, he was nine when his family fled Puigcerdà into France in February 1939. For the next four years he was in seven different internment camps. Rivesaltes “was the worst of all”, he says: “My family spent nearly two years there in terrible conditions. My grandmother died there. The worst part was we didn’t know where my father and uncle were. We were cold and hungry, and above all we were scared. We saw they were deporting the Jews to Germany, but we didn’t know what was going on.”  Rivesaltes memorial camp only opened in 2015. “It was a 20-year fight to create it,” says Sajaloli. “The mayor wanted the barracks to be bulldozed.” But with pressure from historians and Filles et Fils de Républicains Espagnols et fils d’exodus d’Espagne, the derelict barracks were preserved and now provide a haunting setting for a museum which is the focus of a painful awakening of memory.  Nearly 200,000 refugees returned to Spain – after the French encouraged them to go and Franco shamefully lied that they would be well-received. Those who remained suffered greatly, moved between camps or used as forced labour. Republican fighters who escaped joined the resistance. Others, like Morena’s family, suffered great deprivations, but were eventually absorbed into the local region, shaping its history and identity ever since. But while Franco lived, they could never return home. It is a thought that still, 80 years on, makes her weep: “My parents never saw Spain again.”  Barcelona, last stronghold of Spanish Republicans, falls to Franco’s fascist troops, triggering an exodus of Republican fighters and their families.  France opens its border to refugees – women, children and the injured.  11 Feb onwards Camps open across the Pyrénées-Orientales and neighbouring areas. By mid-March they will contain a quarter of a million refugees.  The last refugees get over the border, now finally closed, bringing to an end the Retirada.


theguardianuk--2019-06-18--What is it like being a refugee with Pajtim Statovci and Dina Nayeri books podcast

What is it like being a refugee? with Pajtim Statovci and Dina Nayeri – books podcast

With this week’s show coinciding with Refugee Week, Richard sits down with two authors who were refugees as children: Dina Nayeri, who was eight when her family fled Iran and settled in Oklahoma, and Patjim Statovci, whose family left Kosovo when he was two and grew up in Helsinki. Statovci’s second novel, Crossing, follows two teenagers as they flee Albania for a better life in Europe. And Nayeri’s most recent book The Ungrateful Refugee, which started as a Guardian Long Read, a memoir and journalistic take on the stages in an asylum seeker’s journey, from escape to resettlement.  A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea by Dina Nayeri (Allen & Unwin)

Presented by Claire Armitstead and Richard Lea. Produced by Susannah Tresilian


theguardianuk--2019-08-24--Australia is a bigger cage the ongoing trauma of Naurus child refugees

'Australia is a bigger cage': the ongoing trauma of Nauru's child refugees

“I don’t live in a tent any more. Now, I live in a house made of concrete walls instead of plastic,” says 21-year-old Diba*.  “I don’t have to take two-minute showers under the guard’s eyes any more, no one can invade my privacy here, security officers won’t check my ID all throughout the day any more. The extreme hostile living environment of Nauru is gone.  Hundreds of asylum seekers and refugees have been transferred to Australia and after a national campaign at the end of last year, all children were brought to Australia.  The years on Nauru in the detention and processing system set up by the Australian government have taken a devastating toll on their mental health.  Some were transferred only after a court order, despite medical reports and psychological evaluations repeatedly recommending their urgent removal from the damaging situation.  Now in Australia, at least temporarily, many refugees are struggling to adjust. Accomodation is often more restrictive, and refugees have been unable to access services that doctors say are needed. In at least one case, a toddler was stopped from going to childcare despite doctors saying it was resulting in significant improvements.  “Prolonged detention can cause serious mental health problems and recovery doesn’t always happen by moving in to the community, as specialist treatment is usually required,” says Dr Nick Kowalenko, from the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists’ faculty of child and adolescent psychiatry.  Diba has been diagnosed with major depressive disorder, anxious distress and anhedonia. She has difficulty sleeping, fatigue, feelings of worthlessness, difficulties with memory and concentration, and recurring thoughts of suicide.  She was transferred to Australia in November for acute mental health care, after five years on Nauru.  Under the rules of Diba’s community detention, she “must not engage in any vocational studies or training … [or] in unpaid work, such as volunteering, unless it is approved by the department”.  “There are many opportunities, but my access to them is forbidden. The Australian government is still punishing us, but through different type of deprivation,” she says.  “I was enthusiastic to become a lawyer. I’ve asked from a dozen universities about the possibility of my enrolment, but I found it impossible.  “I’ve experienced massive traumatic events, as a girl, as a child. But, the educational exclusion generates endless regret in me. I feel empty and numb. I am a dreamless girl now.”  Says Kowalenko: “Social isolation is a risk factor for depression commencing and continuing. PTSD affects concentration badly. If a child has missed the opportunity for education this may affect them adversely and partly get in the way of recovery.  “Being part of the community means actively participating in civil and social life and much of that, at the age of 16, for example, happens in educational settings.  “Kids deprived of education opportunities do much worse and recovering is much more difficult and more prolonged, and kids are at much more risk of not recovering or only making a partial recovery. Education opportunity or work is a key element for successful recovery.”  Three-year-old Arman and his 18-month-old brother were born on Nauru to Iranian refugee parents.  A medical assessment by a senior mental health clinician, seen by Guardian Australia, said Arman had presented to South Australian child mental health services with “significant emotional dysregulation and sensory issues in the context of an attachment disorder, past and ongoing trauma, prolonged detention, and parental mental health issues which have impacted on their capacity to establish a structure and routine for [Arman]”.  The Nauruan environment had been “frightening and unpredictable”, the family told the medical assessor.  “The family was exposed to domestic violence in neighbouring homes, as well as violence in the community. [Arman’s mother Termeh’s] mental health continued to deteriorate after the birth of [Arman] in this context.”  Termeh said her son’s behaviour included gouging walls with sharp tools, tearing curtains, and smashing into fridges with his scooter.  In October, the family were transferred to Adelaide for medical treatment, and provided status resolution support services: a payment roughly equivalent to 80% of Newstart, accommodation and health assistance, as well as case management services. Childcare is an “additional service”, according to the department.  Arman was put into external childcare, which one report said had resulted in “obvious improvements”.  The senior clinician strongly advocated for a continuation of the childcare as an “essential part of the treatment process”, advising that if he was deprived of the childcare experience there would be a “significant deterioration in the functioning of the entire family”.  Despite this, childcare was discontinued, says Termeh.  “After three months, without any explanation, we were told by our caseworker that the government has stopped its support and Arman can’t go to childcare any more,” she says.  The Department of Home Affairs told Guardian Australia that childcare was facilitated only on its approval.  “Additional services are approved where there is evidence that the service is required, and all other alternatives have been explored by the parent in the first instance,” a spokeswoman says.  “[State resolution support services] providers must clearly explain why childcare is required and demonstrate that all alternative arrangements have been explored by the parent in the first instance.”  Childcare isn’t required when there are two parents present, or if other adults in the household or family network can help babysit, she says.  “Where a family’s circumstances have improved and childcare is no longer required, the department may vary its approval for additional services.”  Venus, a teenage Iranian refugee who arrived in Nauru at the age of nine, was transferred to Australia at 14 with her family. She was admitted to the Brisbane Children’s Hospital upon arrival, and now lives on a community detention visa with her mother in Brisbane.  “Except for school, Venus doesn’t have any other activity,” her mother, Tara, says.  “I’m not allowed to work and I can’t afford any activity to improve my daughter’s mood. We are living in marginal suburbs. It is a two-hour drive from even my doctor’s office.”  According to hospital documents seen by Guardian Australia, Venus was diagnosed with “adjustment disorder and reactions to severe stress as a result of prolonged detention in association with fear without resolution”.  “Venus regularly draws, sketching out disturbing pictures which under ordinary circumstances would be ‘a highly ominous sign’ warranting immediate psychiatric assessment and possibly hospitalisation,” says Dr Barri Phatarfod, founder and president of Doctors for Refugees.  Doctors linked her stress and trauma to living on Nauru and a pervasive sense of unremitting hopelessness.  “It is difficult for me to find a meaning for my life,” Venus says. “I’ve been excluded from the program that my classmates have participated in, for planning their future study at university.”  Venus said every time she spoke with her government caseworker, they said they were obliged to tell her she had to return to Nauru.  Phatarford says the children and young people will likely need years of intensive mental health intervention, regardless of where they end up.  “When these children are left essentially untreated in the same environment which ignited such a fatalistic worldview, it is extremely damaging psychologically and very hard to adjust when they are ultimately removed,” she says.  “These young children need all the nurturing and security they can get right now. These children turn into adults and we’re already actively creating a sub-generation of deeply traumatised adults who may never achieve their potential on any level. Is that what we want as a country – to be creating further problems, rather than working towards a solution?”


theindependent--2019-01-10--Thousands of Syrian children at risk as flooding hits refugee camps

More than 11,000 children living in camps in northern Syria have been affected by torrential rains that have caused floods and washed away tents.  Severe winter weather has caused misery in Idlib province, which is home to around 1.5 million Syrians who have been displaced from other parts of the country.  Save the Children said on Thursday that reports of illnesses among children there are increasing, but many are unable to get to medics because of the flooding.  “The conditions in the camps and settlements where displaced children are living are miserable, with families suffering through freezing temperatures with only the most basic protection from the elements,” said Save the Children’s Syria response director, Sonia Khush.  “We urgently need to scale up life-saving support for children and families facing a harsh winter in Idlib and elsewhere in Syria,” she added.  The unusually bad weather comes at a time when violence in the beleaguered province is rising, as rival rebel groups battle for control.  The fighting has made it difficult for aid groups to respond to the crisis.  Idlib is home to one of the densest concentrations of displaced people in the world, and another major offensive there could send another 700,000 fleeing for a second time.  Storms have also caused havoc for Syrian refugees in Lebanon.  Tens of thousands have been hit by strong winds, rain and heavy snowfall, and hundreds had to be evacuated after their shelters were flooded.


theindependent--2019-01-19--Over 170 refugees feared dead after dinghies capsize in Mediterranean

An estimated 170 refugees are thought to have drowned after two separate dinghies sank in the Mediterranean on Friday.  One of the small, overloaded boats capsized off the coast of Libya after leaving the country on Thursday night.  An Italian naval helicopter rescued three people who had been on board, who have been taken to hospital on Lampedusa, an Italian island, to be treated for severe hypothermia.  The survivors later told staff at the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) that 120 people had been on board the dinghy.  “After a few hours, it began sinking and people began drowning,” Flavio Di Giacomo, of the IOM, said.  A two-month old baby, 10 women and two children are among the missing and most of the passengers are thought to be from West African countries,  In a second incident, 53 refugees who left Morocco’s shores on a dinghy were declared missing after a reported collision  in the Alboran Sea according to Spanish non-governmental organisation Caminando Fronteras.  The United Nations’ Refugee Agency said in a statement it was deeply saddened by reports of an estimated 170 people dead or missing but was unable to verify the death toll.  Separately, the charity Sea Watch said on Saturday it had rescued 47 people at sea, including eight unaccompanied minors, from a rubber boat in distress north of the Libyan city of Zuwara.  Matteo Salvini, Italy’s interior minister, who has closed off Italian ports to humanitarian boats since in mid-2018, said the ports would remain closed to deter to human traffickers.  These are just the latest tragedies on the central Mediterranean where, in 2018, one in 18 people died or went missing making the trip to Europe.  The UN refugee agency said that though fewer people are making the journey, the rate of deaths has risen sharply.  Some 2,297 refugees are said to have died in the Mediterranean last year, while attempting to reach the continent.


theindependent--2019-01-31--Dozens of children dying of hypothermia at Syrian refugee camp warns World Health Organisation

Dozens of children dying of hypothermia at Syrian refugee camp, warns World Health Organisation

At least 29 children are reported to have died in an overcrowded refugee camp in northeastern Syria over the last two months, mostly from hypothermia, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.  Around 23,000 people have arrived at al-Hol camp after fleeing fighting in Deir ez-Zor between Isis and the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, led by the Kurdish YPG militia.  The influx has swelled the population of the camp, which is unheated and has a shortage of health care services, tents and sanitation facilities.  “The situation in al-Hol camp is heartbreaking. Children are dying from hypothermia as their families flee to safety,” Elizabeth Hoff, WHO representative in Syria, said in a statement on Thursday.  The United Nations agency appealed for unhindered access to the camp, saying the situation had become “critical” for 33,000 people, mainly women and children, who now live there in bitterly cold winter weather.  Many of those who had been displaced by the fighting walked or travelled in open trucks for days, arriving malnourished and exhausted “following years of deprivation” living under the control of Isis, it said.  “Thousands of new arrivals have been forced to spend several nights in the camp’s open-air reception and screening areas, without tents, blankets or heating,” the WHO added.  WHO-supported teams are working around the clock in the camp to screen new arrivals, support vaccination and refer severely malnourished children to a hospital in al-Hasakah, it said.  “Humanitarian access to the camp and surrounding roads is hampered by bureaucratic obstacles and security constraints,” it added, appealing to all parties to provide unhindered access for to people needing life-saving aid.


theindependent--2019-04-07--Gigi Hadid chokes up while discussing emotional visit to Rohingya refugee camp

Gigi Hadid has spoken out about her recent visit to a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh.  "Even with their lives in limbo, these women and girls had such desire to do more, to be more and to get educated to better their lives," the 23-year-old model told the Power of Women event organised by Variety magazine.  Asked how Unicef could help them in different ways, she said the camp's residents told her it "really boiled down to" having an identity.  Hadid, who was named International Model of the Year by the British Fashion Council in 2016, became visibly emotional as she spoke about the connection she forged with the refugees whom she met.  "Although there were definitely moments of joy, of sitting, laughing, playing games and having a human connection with the refugees, I couldn’t help but continue to think about those women and what they said," she recalled.  "At the end of the trip, I went home, and they were still there."  She said that while donating to charity is important, and "genuinely does save lives and help people", the refugees she met wanted to inform the world of their desire for an identity.  "They are human beings like all of us, and what they would do for a citizenship, for an identity," she added. "Most of us have the true gift of identity and the power to express ourselves, the power to speak out for those who cannot for themselves and the power to uplift one another."  Following her trip last summer, Hadid joined forces with fellow model and Unicef ambassador Halima Aden to launch a CrowdRise page in support of Unicef's work to protect vulnerable children around the world.


theindependent--2019-06-17--Almost one in four British children do not know what a refugee is survey says

Almost one in four British children do not know what a refugee is, survey says

Almost a quarter of British children do not know the meaning of the word “refugee”, according to a new survey, amid mounting evidence of a growth in negative sentiments and scepticism towards those seeking asylum in the UK.  Just over half of teachers (52 per cent) spoken to by the British Red Cross (BRC) said they had witnessed “anti-refugee” sentiments in their pupils and almost a quarter of children (24 per cent) did not know what a refugee was.  The poll of 750 primary and secondary school teachers across the UK also showed that 54 per cent believed media, including social media, was a contributing factor to the children’s negative sentiments.  The figures were released as the nation marked refugee week with hundreds of festivities inviting people to explore the lives of refugees living in the UK.  Alex Fraser, of the BRC, said while there were a lot of positive stories in the community, negativity still existed on social media, the street and in classrooms.  “We want to encourage a more informed conversation online and in schools ... and create conditions of greater shared understanding,” he said.  Meanwhile, a new Ipsos global online study of 26 countries across Europe, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific showed overall Britain remained open to welcoming refugees – albeit with some levels of concern around the validity of their claims for asylum.  Seventy-two per cent of British respondents agreed people should have the right to seek refuge from war and persecution, compared with 61 per cent globally.  However, there has been a growth in British who are sceptical that refugees’ claims are genuine – up to 51 per cent from 47 per cent in 2017.  They were also divided over whether refugees would integrate successfully, with 45 per cent believing they would do so compared to 38 per cent who did not.  Ipsos research director Kully Kaur-Ballagan said the findings showed on the whole the British were compassionate about people’s fundamental rights to seek refuge.  “However, in practice there is widespread concern about people taking advantage of the system and the public remains relatively divided over the extent to which refugees will successfully integrate into their new society.”  Refugee Action head of resettlement Lou Calvey said refugees were “desperate to work and contribute”.  But she said it was a gruelling process for those seeking asylum – many of whom waited months with minimal financial support of £37.75 a week.  Those with status also faced challenges getting access to mental health services, English language classes and getting into work that matched their skills.  “I know a Syrian teacher, a bus driver, he’s happy to be working. But something is wrong if he is not able to bring that experience of teaching in Syria for 20 years back to the UK.”  Emma Harrison, the CEO of IMiX, a migration communications hub, said investing in English lessons and enabling people to work while their asylum claim was being processed were key to a successful integration.  “More than anything, refugees want to build a new life for themselves and their families – having made their perilous journey here and having lost so much already.”  For Ahmed Osman, 53, the cost of moving to the UK has been high – he no longer felt able to talk to the family he’d left behind, he struggled with thoughts of suicide and spent a year homeless on the streets of London.  The call upset his mother so much, he no longer felt able to talk to them.  “I’m no young boy to cry like this…[but] I want to see my mum. Five years, I have not called my mum or called my dad. I love them so much, but I called them just one time when I arrived to say I was OK.”  Osman said he’d been happy with his life working as an import-export manager in Egypt, where he helped provide for his four siblings, parents and son.  And if it hadn’t been for a business deal in 2013 that went wrong when a UK-based client went bankrupt without paying up, Osman would likely never have left.  Instead, having come to the UK in 2015 to attempt to recoup his losses, Osman found himself stranded and unable to return, due to threats on his life by those to whom he now owed money.  “Now I can’t go back to Egypt. People are looking for me, as this money is not my money, I can’t return money to these people.”  Legally unable to work while seeking asylum, he ran out of money and for a year lived on the streets around Trafalgar Square and Shepherd’s Bush.  Ashamed of his living situation, Osman’s thoughts turned to suicide.  “No one in my family knows my story. They will die if they know something like this – I felt bad.”  Osman said today things were looking up. He’d completed a business course, found a studio apartment and had established a fruit, vegetable and juice store.  He said this was all that refugees wanted when coming to the UK.  “We are not lazy and crazy. We have energy, we come to work.”


theindependent--2019-06-20--My family and I became refugees after fleeing Iran decades ago but the feeling of being invisible

My family and I became refugees after fleeing Iran decades ago – but the feeling of being invisible has never left me

As a reporter and documentary-maker who reports for the BBC World Service and other broadcasters, I spend a lot of time in airports and train stations. I’m sitting writing this in one right now. However, every time I approach passport control, a sense of uneasiness, and a vague sense of guilt, builds in me. It is difficult to explain why, but it is important that I try and do so.  First, I have to tell you the story of a little girl.  Iran, 2000. She wakes up one morning in her bedroom, the walls covered in Spice Girls and Backstreet Boys posters. It was a couple of months after her 12th birthday, and she should have been going into school as normal, but on that morning, her world was to be turned upside down. Along with her mother and 4-year-old sister, she was taken to Tehran airport.  From the plane she watched the city, her birthplace, get smaller and smaller until it disappeared forever beneath the clouds.  Of course, this 12-year-old girl was me.  The plane landed in Denmark, the destination chosen by the smuggler who had issued our fake visas. We were put in a car, and as I looked out at the unfamiliar landscape, I was fixated by the sky; it comforted me that at least it was the same colour as it had always been. We were dropped off at an enclosure with tall brick walls covered with barbed wire. I looked at the other residents thinking they were zombies, staring at us with dead eyes. “Surely this is a prison” I recall thinking, but I was wrong. This was our first home in Denmark.  Big canteens, confusion, food sanctions, fear, medical checks, clothes donations, my mum, crying. At some point I was put on a bus, leaving the temporary refugee camp for a permanent one.  I was scared of every single person there. The Iraqi guy with the huge scar from his forehead to his chin, the Syrian with one eye, the Somali woman whose face was covered under a burka, the bruised eastern European lady who said she’d run away from her abusive husband, the young Palestinian who claimed to be a former terrorist, the big fat Turkish man with a huge moustache who never seemed to go anywhere without his shisha. All of them, every single one, terrified me.  Whenever the camp’s bus would take us on our fortnightly shopping to the nearest supermarket about a two-hour drive away, the locals would look at us the way I had looked at the residents on my first day at the camp; we scared them. I felt myself a burden, unwanted. And I was beginning to accept it, this new identity. My identity as a refugee.  Then Jeff showed up. Jeff was an old Danish man who started coming in to visit us with a camera. He didn’t understand me and I didn’t I understand him – but he saw us. He wanted to make a film featuring us refugee kids, and hearing this was a turning point for me. A thought lodged itself in my mind that I didn’t have to be invisible. I’d go to bed dreaming about being on TV one day and showing the world what I’ve been through, of speaking and being heard.  Initially, it was logistics, boredom, and limited space which forced the other refugees and me to sit down and actually listen to one another. Our neighbours were from diverse backgrounds, ages, races, colours, and beliefs, and when you live in a close-knit community, your survival depends on communication. With all of us desperate to find a way to communicate, we developed a new language we called “Campie” – a mixture of Arabic, Farsi, Danish, English – and drawings.  When I started listening to the other asylum seeker residents, I began to find myself mesmerised by their stories. We may have been put away by the authorities, homeless, a burden, unwanted and invisible to the society we lived in, but we saw and heard each other. Telling our stories made us feel like we mattered. I made detailed notes in my diary during these years in Denmark, so that one day I could tell the world about it. Those who had once scared me became my family; our bond made the hardship of our lives easier to bear.  When I found out that the man with the huge scar on his face had been murdered, I cried harder than I had when I learnt my granddad in Tehran had passed away.  But this new family, this new world, wasn’t to last. Every morning with my mum I’d go to the camp’s office to look for our names on the list announcing whose asylum application had been either accepted or rejected. One morning, our time was up. We hadn’t been granted permission to stay and had to pack our bags.  We had to start all over again. From scratch. We were exhausted.  The next few months were hard. Hiding from border police, being smuggled from border to border, sleeping rough on the pavements of Europe, shaking from the cold, trying not to think about food because we hadn’t eaten for so long. We had learnt by this point to live life one day at a time, and our experience at the refugee camp had taught us to make the most of the little we did have.  After a few months like this, I was once again on a plane, bound for the UK. There, we were eventually granted citizenship. We were in a home that was ours and a country we felt we belonged in.  This wasn’t the end of my story of course. My mother, sister and I lived on the poverty line around different cities in the UK, trying to learn English, and the emotional trauma of what we’d been through weighing heavy on us all. But the determination and self-reliance that had grown in me from my childhood experiences have built me into the journalist I am now.  I recently made Me, The Refugee for the BBC World Service, telling my own story, for the first time. It was the most difficult thing I’ve ever made, even after all these years, even after reporting from some of the world’s most hostile environments like Afghanistan, Mauritania, and Syria. But why am I telling you all this now?  Sipping on an iced latte, I’m in a coffee shop in Copenhagen airport writing this. It is the same airport I arrived at when I first left Iran. I landed here, a confused, lost and terrified child who felt invisible. I now travel the world trying my best to amplify people’s voices, be it telling the stories of mothers in US jails or those living in Afghanistan’s only psychiatric unit. That I do this is all due to the power I found as a child when one man came to my refugee camp and listened to me, and I, in turn, learnt to listen to others.  That’s why I want to tell you my story, and I want you to listen, both for the voiceless little girl in the remote refugee camp, and to show the world why listening to people with different stories to us, and being given a platform to tell them, is so important to creating a compassionate world.  The memory of what it feels like to be invisible, of feeling the need to cry out for help only for your voice to disappear, never leaves you. That’s why I still get nervous in airports. But now I know that my voice matters, and that makes all the difference.  You can download the podcast of Me, The Refugee from the BBC World Service on BBC Sounds and on bbc.co.uk/worldservice


theindependent--2019-06-28--In photos The depth of the refugee crisis across the world

In photos: The depth of the refugee crisis across the world

Twelve-year-old Waibai Buka (centre) skips rope as a friend records a video of her with a computer tablet provided by Unicef at a school in Baigai. Waibai had to flee her village after an attack by Boko Haram. She has not seen her father since the attack and fears he might be dead. Unicef initiated a pilot project in January 2017 called “Connect My School”. Six solar-powered units help provide internet to schools in different parts of Cameroon. Two of the units were installed in schools in Cameroon’s Far North region – one in Minawao refugee camp, the other in Baigai, near the Nigerian border, where some 50 per cent of children have been displaced by Boko Haram-related violence.


theindependent--2019-09-02--Dozens more child refugees could make dangerous Channel crossing in event of no-deal Brexit chariti

Dozens more child refugees could make dangerous Channel crossing in event of no-deal Brexit, charities warn

Dozens more refugee children could risk their lives making the dangerous crossing from France to Britain if the UK leaves the EU without a deal, charities have warned.  The current system of transferring asylum-seeking children in the EU to join family members in Britain is set to come to an end in the event of a no-deal Brexit, the UN refugee agency UNHCR has said.  This would leave hundreds of child refugees in Europe at risk of falling into the hands of people traffickers in order to join their family members, including around 64 youngsters currently in northern France, who charities and politicians fear will turn to unauthorised routes.  Currently, unaccompanied minors in Europe who have relatives in the UK can apply to join them under the Dublin III Regulation, which is part of EU law.  It is a lengthy process, with children often waiting months or even years to be moved to Britain after submitting their applications, but it has enabled hundreds of youngsters to reunite with their relatives in recent years.  Maddy Allen, field manager for Calais-based charity Help Refugees, said scrapping the law would “immediately put hundreds of children at risk across Europe”, including 64 youngsters currently sleeping outside in Calais and Dunkirk.  “These are children who should be reunited with their family members from whom they’ve been separated,” she told The Independent.  “To withdraw from the Dublin regulations for family reunification would be to further entrench the hostile environment into the fabric of Britain. It is a cruel and inhumane step that would leave unaccompanied children scattered around Europe, falling prey to smugglers and traffickers.”  Lord Alf Dubs, who earlier this year passed an amendment to continue the family reunion provisions after Brexit, told this newspaper: “Given that both houses passed the legislation that we should go on having the child reunion mechanism after we’ve left the EU, I think it is disgraceful if they now say they’re going to drop it altogether.  “These are vulnerable children. It’s an absolute disgrace. It’s shabby and contemptible. I am going to raise it in parliament as soon as I can.  “All we’re saying is if you’ve got a Syrian boy in France who’s got an uncle in England, then the right thing is for him to be with his uncle. It makes for international cooperation, but above all it saves young people from being absolutely without any family members at all.  “The whole argument for the legislation is that if we give young people safe routes, then they don’t fall into the hands of traffickers. All that will happen is that they will then resort to the traffickers. It’s a lose-lose situation.”  A UNHCR spokesperson said: “The UNHCR understands that if the UK leaves the EU without a deal, the Dublin Regulation, which allows for the transfer of asylum-seeking children and adults within the EU to join family members, will no longer apply to the UK.  “UNHCR urges the UK government and its European partners to work together to ensure that appropriate arrangements remain in place for asylum seekers, refugees and stateless people.”  It comes amid a surge in displaced people attempting to cross from France to Britain in small boats, which has prompted fierce debate around how to prevent asylum seekers from embarking on dangerous journeys.  Charities have urged ministers to roll back “brutal” border policies at Calais which they say push people into turning to illegal routes, while Boris Johnson warned that he would send any asylum seekers who successfully cross back to France.  The Home Office has been approached for comment.


theirishtimes--2019-02-18--Life for refugees in Ireland We have lost hope of getting a house

Life for refugees in Ireland: ‘We have lost hope of getting a house’

Hanadi Wanli and her three children arrived in Ireland 2½ years ago as refugees from Damascus in Syria. They were reunited with Hanadi’s husband, who had travelled to Ireland more than a year before and applied for family reunification for his wife, children and mother.  The family was temporarily given a home in the Mosney direct provision centre while they looked for accommodation. More than two years later, they’re still at the centre, and still searching.  Alma Harrack (15), the eldest of the three children, who now speaks fluent English, has spent hours on property websites sending emails to landlords expressing interest in homes on behalf of her parents. They have attended numerous viewings but never hear back.  “The main barrier to finding a home is that my granny has special needs,” says Alma. “She’s 83-years-old and in a wheelchair, so we had to find a house with a full bathroom downstairs. This is alongside the general difficulties of finding a home.”  Ms Wanli says many landlords react badly upon hearing the family are recipients of the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP).  “We’ve lost hope of getting a house, we’ve been waiting so long,” she said. “When you live temporarily you don’t feel comfortable. We’re being asked to leave Mosney but we can’t find anywhere.”  Nearly 12 per cent of people living in direct provision (700 out of the total of 5,972 residents) have been granted asylum but have been unable to secure housing outside the centres. Five of the 400 centres in Ireland are currently oversubscribed, including the Mosney holiday camp in Co Meath, where 693 people are living. The contracted capacity for the centre is 600 people.  Overcrowding in some centres has become so acute that maintenance work cannot be carried out, even as centres are being asked to create more bed spaces “without sacrificing standards”, according to internal briefings recently reported on by The Irish Times.  Clara, who lives in the Globe House direct provision centre in Sligo with her husband and two children, received international protection in April 2018. Before that, she had spent seven years in direct provision after coming to Ireland from Nigeria. Like Ms Wanli, she has attended many viewings but never hears back from the landlord. Many request a reference from a previous landlord, but refuse a replacement document from the manager of Globe House.  “They hear your accent and that you’re not Irish and tell you the house is gone. My son was so happy when we got our papers, he was expecting we would be leaving soon. It would mean a lot [to find a home]. We will finally experience our freedom and do things at our own convenience.”  Nick Henderson, chief executive of the Irish Refugee Council, said delays in the system combined with the housing crisis and discrimination towards refugees makes it extremely difficult for people leaving direct provision to find a home.  “It’s hugely difficult and deflating,” said Mr Henderson. “We would say you have two mountains to climb: the first is being recognised as a refugee and the second is getting out of direct provision and establishing your life in Ireland.”


theirishtimes--2019-12-30--Fifty Syrian refugees arrive at Mosney Direct Provision centre

Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan has welcomed 50 Syrian refugees to the Mosney Direct Provision centre as part of Ireland’s refugee programme.  The families will initially stay at the Mosney centre in Co Meath, where they will receive supports such as English language and orientation classes, before being settled in communities around the country.  Those who arrived in Mosney on Monday had been living in a UN Refugee Agency camp in Lebanon and had already been granted refugee status prior to their arrival in Ireland.  They had also been interviewed by officials from the Department of Justice as part of the resettlement strand of the Irish Refugee Protection Programme.  “I am delighted to have had the opportunity to meet with the families today,” Mr Flanagan said.  “Their experiences over the last few years as they were forced to flee their homes have been traumatic and their stories are harrowing and deeply moving.  “Their long journey to find safety and sanctuary is now over and I know that the people of Ireland will welcome them with open arms and the offer of friendship and support.”


themanchestereveningnews--2019-03-30--The Syrian refugees whove brought a taste of the Middle East to Bury Market

The Syrian refugees who've brought a taste of the Middle East to Bury Market

As the civil war raged on around their village in Syria, Seham Al Tamer and Ghassan Makdesi fled their home with their young daughter three-and-a-half years ago.  Their nearest city, Hama, had come under siege in 2011 as the Syrian military and opposition forces clashed, with hundreds of civilian casualities.  With fierce fighting still going on in the area, the couple had to make the heart-wrenching decision to leave everything they knew behind them for the sake of eight-year-old Katrina.  "It was bad - too bad," says Seham.  "Next to my village you couldn't go anywhere, it was all people fighting. I want my daughter to be safe."  The family made the long and difficult journey - one they still don't like to talk about - through Turkey to mainland Europe before arriving here in England, eventually settling in Bury after being granted refugee status.  Bringing nothing but their Christian faith and determination to build a future for Katrina, they enrolled in English classes and, with the support of several churches in the parish, they found a stall at Bury Market where they started selling their own falafels and other traditional Arabic dishes last November.  "The first week when we came here we were coming to the market and my husband told me I'd like a shop," says Seham, 46, who worked in a sweet shop back in Syria while Ghassan, 53, was a driver.  "It's small for the beginning but it's enough.  "When I finished English last year I thought I have to get a job now, we have to earn money. I want a better life for my daughter."  The stall, Falafels and More, serves Syrian and Lebanese specialities such as manaaeesh, a hot toasted flatbread topped with thyme, Middle Eastern spices and seeds, served with olives, fresh mint and salad (£2); and chicken tawouk, a flame-grilled kebab marinated in yoghurt and spices(£3.50).  Falafels are freshly-cooked to order and served in flatbreads with homemade hummus, Syrian pickle, tahini relish and salad (£3.50), and are also available to take home.  A range of drinks is also available including traditional Arabic coffee made with cardamom (£1.50) and Syrian mint, rose, jasmine or orange blossom teas (£1.20).  The couple also offer outside catering and recently served food for the mayor and other dignitaries at an event at Bury town hall.  They say they've been warmly welcomed into the market, and the wider community in Bury.  "It's a nice area, we like Bury ," says Ghassan.  Seham adds: "A lot of people have become friends, who we didn't know before [through the stall]. People, even those who don't know us, they say 'hello, how are you, where are you from?' and 'we're so sorry about Syria'."  Now 12 and in her first year at secondary school, Katrina has made plenty of friends too and has picked up the language - and a northern accent - quickly as well.  "I was fluent in Arabic and French when I came here. Now I've learned English I can't remember all my Arabic, I can only write a few words," she says.  Seham adds: "Sometimes I ask her would you like to go back, she says 'no, I have friends here now'."  The couple still have family in Syria although many relatives have also fled the fighting.  "It is very hard to have to leave everything," says Seham.  "I want all of us to be safe. We had no job, no money, nothing. [The fighting] is still around our village now. We are so sad about everything happening."  For now, their focus is on their future in Bury.  "We're like more catering, more customers, maybe a bigger shop," says Seham.  "We are very happy to be here."  Falafels and More is open at Bury Market on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, from 8am to 4pm, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10am to 3pm.


thesun--2019-02-16--World Refugee Day 2019 what is the theme and what are the best quotes and little known facts

World Refugee Day 2019 – what is the theme and what are the best quotes and little known facts?

WORLD Refugee Day is an international observance to raise awareness of the struggles refugees face around the world.  We explain when it is, how its marked and some facts about the holiday.  World Refugee Day is on June 20 every year and this year it falls on a Thursday.  On December 4 2000, the United Nations General Assembly decided that June 17 would be celebrated as World Refugee Day in Resolution 55/76.  The General Assembly noted that in 2001 it would mark the 50 th anniversary of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.  The dated was later moved to June 20.  The United Nations Refugee Agency and thousands of civic groups around the globe host events to raise awareness of the plight of refugees.  It is observed in more than 100 countries and involves government officials, humanitarian workers, celebrities, civilians and refugees.  The UNCHR encourages people to mark the day by attending local World Refugee Day events, watching and sharing videos and by raising awareness on social media.  This year, World Refugee Day will also mark a key moment for the public to show support for families forced to flee.  This year’s theme is Global Compact on Refugees.  It calls for investment in communities that host refugees to help ease the pressure on the host and to help refugees become self-reliant.  Every minute 20 people leave everything behind to escape war, persecution or terror  86 per cent of the world’s refugees are hosting by developing countries  The largest refugee camp is in Dadaab, Kenya and is home to more than 329,000 people  51 per cent of refugees are under the age of 18  The first-ever Refugee Team competed in the 2016 Olympics in Rio


thesun--2019-03-30--Brit girl 9 trapped in Syrian refugee camp after ISIS dad forced family to leave UK says she dream

Brit girl, 9, trapped in Syrian refugee camp after ISIS dad forced family to leave UK says she dreams of returning home

A NINE-YEAR-OLD girl trapped in a Syrian refugee camp has revealed she dreams of having pink wallpaper in her bedroom as she begged to come home.  The unnamed youngster and her family was forced to leave the UK by her dad four years ago - now stuck in a camp after the defeat of the terror cell.  The school girl's family had travelled to Syria to join the terror organisation, with her dad since killed in unknown circumstances.  Speaking to The Times, the schoolgirl recounted hazy memories of the UK, spending time in parks and at the beach with her family.  Playing at the displacement camp in northern Syria, the little girl said: "I want to go to England."  And describing how she would like her room to look, she added: "Lots of pink. I like pink roses and every colour of roses. I want them in my room."  The youngster cannot speak Arabic, and instead makes friends with stray dogs in the camp as her family hopes to return to the UK.  She is one of reportedly hundreds of British kids living in refugee camps in Syria after the defeat of ISIS.  The family reportedly escaped ten months ago, with a smuggler paid to take them out of the region.  But while they had hoped to make it to Turkey, the young family was captured by Kurdish-led forces.  Her mum, also unnamed, claimed she had been following her husband's orders when he made them travel to Syria.  She said: "I wanted to come out long ago. I was looking for someone to take us out but it took a long time."  The family's story comes after ISIS bride Shamima Begum begged to be able to return to the UK after fleeing to Syria in 2015.  Critics argued the teen was a danger to the country, with the Home Office stripping her of her British citizenship.  On March 20, 2019, her family have formally started their legal challenge to reverse Sajid Javid's decision  Within weeks of arriving, Begum was married to ISIS jihadi Yago Riedijk, 27, from Holland.  And she calmly revealed that the first time she saw a severed head “didn’t faze me at all”.  But she resurfaced earlier this year, saying she wanted to come back home for the sake of her baby, having lost her first two children just weeks after they were born.


thesun--2019-06-20--World Refugee Day 2019 what is the theme and what are the best quotes and little known facts

TODAY'S World Refugee Day is an international observance to raise awareness of the struggles refugees face around the world.  We explain when it is, how its marked and some facts about the holiday.  World Refugee Day is on June 20 every year, meaning that is it TODAY.  On December 4 2000, the United Nations General Assembly decided that June 17 would be celebrated as World Refugee Day in Resolution 55/76.  The General Assembly noted that in 2001 it would mark the 50 th anniversary of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.  The dated was later moved to June 20.  The United Nations Refugee Agency and thousands of civic groups around the globe host events to raise awareness of the plight of refugees.  It is observed in more than 100 countries and involves government officials, humanitarian workers, celebrities, civilians and refugees.  The UNCHR encourages people to mark the day by attending local World Refugee Day events, watching and sharing videos and by raising awareness on social media.  This year, World Refugee Day will also mark a key moment for the public to show support for families forced to flee.  This year’s theme is Global Compact on Refugees.  It calls for investment in communities that host refugees to help ease the pressure on the host and to help refugees become self-reliant.  Every minute 20 people leave everything behind to escape war, persecution or terror  86 per cent of the world’s refugees are hosting by developing countries  The largest refugee camp is in Dadaab, Kenya and is home to more than 329,000 people  51 per cent of refugees are under the age of 18  The first-ever Refugee Team competed in the 2016 Olympics in Rio  We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368 . We pay for videos too. Click here to upload yours


thetelegraph--2019-03-31--UN warnings after Calais child refugees went on hunger strike over delayed UK transfers

Calais child refugees went on hunger strike - with one attempting suicide - after the UK delayed transfers, prompting warnings from UN and French authorities.  At least 35 children held at a centre in the ferry port in northern France sparked concern among senior officials at the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), who then raised the issue of their health and welfare with the Home Office.  Details of the exchange was set out in a series of emails as seen by The Guardian.  The newspaper reported that one of the emails sent by the UNHCR said: “In particular, it was raised that the mental and psychological state of the children had deteriorated in recent weeks, including one case of a child who has attempted suicide and 15 who are currently partaking in a hunger strike.”  The majority of the unaccompanied minors had made applications under the Dublin III regulation, known as the Dubs amendment, which falls under family reunification provisions which are ratified by European law. They must be acted upon within two months, instead the children suffered “excessive delays”.


thetelegraph--2019-04-30--1000 Muslim refugees flee homes after Sri Lanka retaliation attacks

1,000 Muslim refugees flee homes after Sri Lanka retaliation attacks

Around 1,000 Muslim refugees in Sri Lanka have been forced from their homes in retaliatory attacks following the Easter Sunday bombings, according to Human Rights Watch.  Mobs threatened to destroy the houses of Afghans, Pakistanis and Iranians - most of whom are part of minority Muslim sects such as the Ahmadiyya - who had fled to Sri Lanka after suffering persecution in their homelands.  Some also reported that they had been beaten up by gangs wielding sticks and stones.  A small number of Christian refugees from the three countries have also been caught up in attacks through mistaken identity.  “The people in Pakistan attacked us and say we’re not Muslims,” said Tariq Ahmed, a 58-year-old Pakistani Ahmadiyya told Associated Press.  “Then in Sri Lanka, people attack us because they say we are Muslims.”  Around 650 refugees have sought shelter at a mosque in the city of Pasyala, near Negombo.