Denmark helps Syria Cope with the long-lasting Iraqi displacement

The Danish Refugee Council has established a community centre in Homs, where a significant number of Iraqi refugees have found temporary settlement. The centre will be opened on a ceremony February 10 attended by the governor of Homs and the Danish ambassador.

The ceremony will mark the first step in a plan to expand the response of the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) to Iraqi refugees residing outside Damascus and support the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) in the assistance it provides to refugees and Syrian vulnerable families in areas far from the capital city where the international aid remains concentrated.

DRC has been providing educational, vocational training and community services support to Iraqi refugees in Damascus since early 2008. Those services have, since late 2009, been expanded to the countryside cities of Homs and Dara’a.

“A proportion of vulnerable Iraqis have left Damascus where living cost is not affordable to settle in cities where humanitarian aid is unfortunately less accessible. Therefore, DRC and the SARC have established a centre where refugees and their hosts are offered a wide range of services going from social/psychosocial counselling to languages/skills development courses or tutorial program for school-aged children which help them cope with displacement issues and maintain/develop social links with the local communities” says Olivier Beucher, Country Director of DRC – Syria.

The project started in late 2009 and has been funded by the Danish Government (Ministry of Foreign Affairs). It has been implemented in close partnership with the SARC Damascus HQ and their Homs branch with whom the work were jointly implemented and monitored. Therefore the opening ceremony will be attended by the Danish ambassador (Mrs. Christina MARKUS LASSEN) and the governor of Homs (Mr. Mohammad Yyad GHAZAL).

“Our local counterpart, the SARC, has made its resources available for the benefit of the project and together we develop a centre which aims at bringing additional capacity to SARC for assisting refugees and vulnerable Syrian families” says Olivier Beucher.

The Danish Refugee Council is one of the first international NGOs who have obtained permission to operate in Syria and has developed an assistance program in partnership with the Danish government, UNHCR, UNICEF, SIDA, SDC, the Ministry of Education and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. DRC’s objective is to ensure effective protection and humanitarian assistance to Iraqi refugees in Syria.

Source: ReliefWeb

From Sudan to Israel: a tough road

An Eritrea refugee in south Tel Aviv. Many migrants and refugees live in the south Tel Aviv neighborhood near the central bus station

From the top of a sand dune on the Egyptian side of the border it’s easy to see how 18,000 African asylum seekers have slipped across Israel’s desert frontier.

Khalil, one of many Sinai Bedouins involved in smuggling, points at the sparsely placed Egyptian guard posts in the distance. He says he smuggles around 20 Africans a week into Israel, usually in groups of five to 10.

Each migrant pays between $500 and $1,000 for the trip from Cairo to the border, sometimes triple that to get from their home countries into Egypt. Under the cover of night smugglers, like Khalil, drop groups in the desert about a third of a mile from the border. Often barefoot, they run across the sand toward the Jewish state.

High wages and relative security have turned Israel into something of a promised land for those fleeing conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa. At one time, many refugees went no further than Egypt, but tough economic conditions and the deteriorating security there, have pushed thousands to make a run for the border. Israeli officials have said that as many as 700 to 1,000 migrants sneak across their porous Sinai frontier each month.

In an effort to stop this flow, and stem other smuggling, last week Israel approved construction of a $270 million-fence outfitted with surveillance equipment for its southern border.

“This is a strategic decision to ensure the Jewish and democratic character of the State of Israel,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a statement when he announced approval of the fence earlier this month. “Israel will remain open to war refugees but we cannot allow thousands of illegal workers to infiltrate into Israel via the southern border and flood our country.”

A couple hundred miles north, in the upscale Israeli town of Zichron Yaakov, Adham, a Darfuri refugee who crossed the southern border, unpacks boxes in the simple but comfortable one-bedroom apartment he will share with his wife and two sons. From the small terrace outside, the Mediterranean Sea is almost visible a few miles away.

A group of local residents are working to provide Adham’s, and several other Sudanese families who were smuggled into Israel across the southern border, with residence permits, jobs and homes here in one of the country’s wealthiest communities.

“It’s better here,” said Adham, mixing bits of Hebrew into his thick Darfuri Arabic as he explains he went to Cairo in the hope that the United Nations refugee office would resettle him to Europe or the U.S. “But they said I will stay in Egypt.”

Previously abundant resettlement programs in Cairo have dwindled since 2005, and only the most vulnerable refugees are being resettled there.

Adham won refugee status in Egypt and tried to scrape out a living for his family in Cairo. Refugees are forbidden from working in Egypt and most of those who are able to find informal work receive little pay and lack job security. After six years, Adham gave up and arranged for himself and his family to be smuggled across the border.

“That’s one of the reasons people engage smugglers,” said Michael Kagan, former senior fellow in human rights law at the American University in Cairo’s Centre for Migration and Refugee Studies. “They don’t have access to what is called a ‘durable solution,’ where they can lead a longer-term dignified life in the first country.”

While only a token number of refugees in Israel have been awarded official asylum status, leaving most in limbo, thousands have been issued temporary protection and work permits. Wages are much higher in Israel than Egypt, and those who reach Tel Aviv usually find manual labor jobs or employment in hotels, allowing a modest living and in some cases the ability to send remittance home.

Not all are so lucky. Last year Israel started cracking down on migrants and refugees within its borders, with mass arrests and new restrictions on temporary residency permits, aimed at making conditions less desirable. Nearly 2,000 asylum seekers remain in Israeli detention centers — most are recent arrivals coming via the Sinai. At least 300 have been promptly returned to Egypt after successfully crossing the border, since Israel launched a strategy of “hot return” in August of 2008 — a policy now being challenged in Israel’s supreme court.

Others don’t even make it that far — at least 50 migrants have been shot and killed by Egyptian security personnel in the sparsely populated military zone along the border since mid-2007. Human rights groups have accused Egypt of having a shoot-to-stop policy and suspect the number of deaths could be greater, as the remoteness of the area means relying primarily on government reports. Hundreds more have been arrested and imprisoned by Egyptian forces while en route to the frontier.

But success stories like Adham’s have traveled back to the conflict-ridden villages of Africa, fueling migration north. There are now over 4,500 Sudanese refugees in Israel, making them the second largest group of asylum seekers in the state, after Eritreans.

In a Cairo cafe, Simret tells about his failed attempt to cross into Israel. At 17 years old, he was arrested for practicing Pentecostalism in his native Eritrea and faced indefinite conscription to the country’s grueling military service. He fled north, staying more than one year in Sudan before coming to Egypt in search of greater security.

“When I came here I was encouraged to go to Israel,” said Simret. It only took smugglers a few days to convince him he should head for the border.

He left Cairo by night, passing several checkpoints successfully, but at the final roadblock in Sinai police arrested Simret and four others from the Horn of Africa. He spent six weeks in Egyptian detention centers fearful he would be deported to Eritrea, which has become one of Africa’s most repressive states. Egypt has returned over 1,200 Eritreans to their country, putting them at risk of lengthy detention, torture and even death.

Those heading for safer soil will likely find other, more risky, routes. The first sections of Israel’s border fence will be built along the north and south stretches of the frontier, possibly pushing refugees to take routes deeper in the Sinai’s harsh desert.

“We don’t know if it will actually reduce the number that go through there,” said Kagan. “But it’s likely it will at least make the migration route more dangerous.”

Source: Global Post

Refugees make a new start

Team Ntini, boys from Sudan and Vietnam, prove a big hit yesterday between innings at the MCG one-day international. (Photo: Vince Caligiuri)

They call themselves Ntini, after Makhaya Ntini, the South African fast bowler, taker of 390 Test wickets and that country’s first black cricketer in the wake of apartheid. Their numbers include 10 Sudanese players, a handful of Vietnamese, a Filipino and a Ugandan, and they are all from refugee families who have settled in Melbourne’s west. They also got to run around the MCG yesterday during the dinner break in the Australia-West Indies one-dayer as part of a program run by Cricket Victoria aimed at helping refugee families to assimilate. Ntini is the under-13 development team run by Sunshine Heights Cricket Club and is coached by Matthew Whitecross, a lifelong cricketer who also happens to be vice-principal at Mother of God Primary School in Ardeer, where most of the players either go to school, or previously were schooled. As part of their program, they researched the feats of Ntini for purposes of inspiration and focus. ”A lot of these boys came to Australia in the last five years as refugees, many of them from Sudan,” said Whitecross. ”A lot of them have struggled academically. They’re learning a new language and a lot of them had no schooling or a very interrupted schooling before they arrived in Australia.” Cricket has been the vehicle set up to encourage them. ”A few of us got together to find something to give these kids an opportunity to feel good about themselves and to help them assimilate into Australian society. I guess what better way than one of our national sports?” Two of the boys, Akat and Ringo, have graduated to Sunshine Heights’ senior team in the C Turf competition and are believed by Cricket Victoria to be the first senior cricketers in Australia hailing from Sudan. Others just play for fun. Whitecross said numbers had bulged this season. ”They absolutely love it. There’s all different levels of ability. Some of them play because it’s a social outlet and a chance to just enjoy being kids. Others really develop some strong skills. Some of these boys had a horrific start to their lives. It’s nice to see them starting to blossom and enjoy being kids.”

Wider game
They were not the only refugees on the field last night. A team from Eaglehawk Cricket Club in Bendigo chock full of children from Myanmar (formerly Burma) also was there. They spawned from families of the Karen ethnic group, which represents about 7 per cent of the Burmese population who have fought for independence for some years. In the past few years many of them settled in Bendigo and a community volunteer, Jan Porter, came up with the idea of using cricket to help them settle. ”Jan thinks cricket is the Aussie way to integrate kids into the community,” said John Harris, Cricket Victoria’s rural unit manager. Eaglehawk has nine Karen players in its under-11 and under-13 teams. ”It’s doing good on two fronts,” said Harris. ”Firstly it helps the kids develop friendships but it’s also increasing community awareness of the need to embrace this concept of integrating these people into the community.” Bendigo City Council is so impressed by what has been done at Eaglehawk that it is investigating ways to broaden the program to other sports.

Source: The Age

UNHCR calls on donors for fresh contributions to Yemen operation

UNHCR staff assist forcibly displaced people at a tented settlement in northern Yemen last year. (Photo: L. Chedrawi/ UNHCR)

The UN refugee agency on Friday said it might have to scale back on its vital work in Yemen because of a lack of funding and called on donors for fresh contributions to its operations there for tens of thousands of refugees and internally displaced people (IDP).

“We are facing a dramatic funding situation in Yemen,” UNHCR’s chief spokesperson, Melissa Fleming, told journalists in Geneva. She said that UNHCR’s part of the 2010 UN consolidated appeal for Yemen amounts to US$35.6 million, but “to date, we have received less than three per cent of the needed funds.”

The dire funding situation is diminishing UNHCR’s capacity to register and document refugees and IDPs, to monitor their situation and to address their needs. Fresh funds are also required to expand the existing, overpopulated IDP camps and to build new ones; to organize and provide shelter materials, namely much needed tents and plastic sheeting; and to provide basic relief items such as blankets, mattresses, household goods and hygiene kits.

“We are deeply concerned that unless there is a prompt and adequate response from donors, the lack of funding will very soon have a direct impact on our work to protect and assist some 250,000 IDPs and more than 170,000 refugees in Yemen,” Fleming said.

“With continuing conflict in the north of Yemen and ongoing conflict in Somalia generating a continuous influx of Somalis towards Yemen, these numbers continue to grow,” the spokesperson added.

Source: UNHCR

Afghani refugee rises above repression to pack a punch in the ring

Female boxers Carol Earl and Mariam Farid (right) pack a punch at Bulldog Gym. Photo: Isabella Lettini

On almost a daily occurrence, Mariam Farid lives her dream – it comes in the form of a closed fist pounding her jaw or a foot jolting her hamstring.

But for the 23-year-old kickboxer from Stanhope Gardens, stepping into the ring brings no pain.

Instead, welts on her shins or bruises on her face are merely a by-product of her adrenaline-fuelled passion… the real pain and emotional heartache endured happens outside the ring.

At first, Farid’s diminutive stature and softly-spoken voice give little indication as to what compels her to sustain (and inflict) nightly torture following her more conservative day job as a social worker.

But when asked about her former life in Herat, Afghanistan, she reveals how the battles she has faced in her two official fights (she has won both) and countless sparring sessions pale in comparison to the struggles she faced as a youngster back home.

“Herat is a town where the Taliban were…I saw some terrible things there when I was younger,’’ she said.

“When I was nine or 10, I was on my to drop a video off at the shop with my dad when a bomb went off next to us. My father got shrapnel in him and I got blood on me, but we survived.’’

“I also saw women beaten in the middle of the street for wearing nail-polish and I lived near a stadium were people were murdered by the Taliban… it was normal to hear people talk
in the street about what happened the night before.’’

But don’t be mistaken, Farid’s isn’t a hard-luck story where she finds salvation in overcoming her demons each time she throws a jab/kick combination.

First and foremost kickboxing has been about the enjoyment of competition Farid gets from going toe-to-toe with another female thrill-seeker.

But encouraging women to get involved in kickboxing (and ignore the stereotype that kickboxing is only a sport for males) is also something that the Bulldog Gym Parramatta fighter is passionate about.

“A lot see it is as a male-dominated sport and don’t see it is as something the girls can do also… it’s just ignorance,’’ she said.

“When I tell people I do kickboxing they are shocked and don’t understand why I do it, they think I must be an angry person. I’m not angry at all, it’s just something I love to do and over time I’ve been doing it there have been other girls come up to me who have been interested about how to get into it.’’

While Farid has the full support of the male kickboxers she trains alongside at the Parramatta gym, it’s been a little harder gaining the support of her parents.

“Back in Afghanistan girls hardly do sport, there are a few but the majority are men. Doing kickboxing is something my parents have struggled with, they won’t come to my fights,’’ she said.

“They tell me `go and join a normal gym with treadmills,’ they’re just not big fans of kickboxing.

“But it has become a part of my life. I can’t imagine leaving it, I’ve been doing it for three years and I’m going to stick to it, it’s an obsession.’’

Farid hopes to become a world champion one day, but in the meantime you can support her in her next bout: Revolution Fight Club, March 13 at Parramatta RSL.

Source: Blacktown Advocate

Refugees to find new homes

Gigi and Daniel Mapatano, African refugees now settled in Lismore, pictured at last November’s Music Festival in Mullumbimby.

The call came through to the Mullumbimby branch of Sanctuary Northern Rivers just before Christmas Day – two small Congolese families had been identified as suitable to initiate the settlement program in Mullumbimby, and would probably be arriving in March or April.

It was the culmination of several months of meetings and preparation, initiated by a group of parishioners from the Uniting Church in Mullumbimby who had responded to an invitation from Sanctuary Northern Rivers in Lismore looking to expand beyond Lismore.

“We thought that was something the churches should be involved in,” said group member John Morris, “because that’s what the gospels are really about, and it was something we saw as possible in Mullumbimby with its rich mix of people, where there is tolerance and acceptance.

“I’ve done a fair bit of talking about it since, and haven’t met anyone who has said, no, we don’t want them.”

Sanctuary Northern Rivers is a non-denominational community-based charity set up in Lismore to bring people to the Northern Rivers area from countries torn apart by war such as the Sudan, Congo, Somalia, Sierra Leone and Burma – people who have official refugee status from the UN.

They are usually people who have been living in refugee camps, mostly in appalling conditions, and often for a very long time, and even though they have been granted official refugee status, they need help to get to another country because they are not in a category given any assistance to resettle.

And this is where Sanctuary steps in, with its neat solution of a revolving fund – they pay the airfares of the refugee families, and in time the families repay the debt so that others in turn can be helped.

The news of the arrival of two families from the Congo has caused a flurry of activity for the 15 or so members of Mullumbimby Sanctuary, for settling the new arrivals will involve far more than just funding airfares.

There is the need to secure accommodation and employment for the families, as well as organise bank accounts and access to Centrelink, medical facilities, English classes and possibly trauma counselling.

A team of volunteers will be organised to spend time with the families, helping them to settle in to an environment that will be culturally strange and different in almost every way.

John Morris is confident that the majority of people in Mullumbimby will welcome the refugee families with open arms.

“Once their story has been told,” he said, “it would be a very hard-hearted person who would say they didn’t care.

“The way the community responded to the bushfires and the tsunami shows that we do care.”

Offers of help and support have already begun to flow in – the local Lions Club has been quick to declare itself right behind the group, and someone out of the blue approached John with on offer of employment just the other day.

The Mullumbimby Music Festival last November was of great assistance when Sanctuary Northern Rivers had a stall outside the Civic Centre.

“We raised about $800 through raffle tickets and donations,” said Sanctuary member Tressa Kennedy, “and this will pay a portion of the airfares.

“We also went on to some of the stages to talk about what we are doing, so the word is out there.”

Source: Byron Shire News

U.N.: January was Somalia deadliest month since summer

Soldiers attend to the wounded from a rebel attack in Mogadishu last week.

Hundreds of Somalis were killed and tens of thousands forced from their homes in January, the deadliest month in the war-torn country since last August, the United Nations refugee agency said Tuesday.

At least 258 civilians were killed and 253 wounded as government forces clashed with rebel militia in the central regions of the country, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees spokesman said, citing local sources.

About 29,000 people fled fighting in the Galgaduud region and many are reportedly sleeping in the open without shelter or access to enough water, the agency said. Aid workers cannot get to them because it is too dangerous, the U.N. added.

And they are only some of those displaced by the conflict. Another 43,000 fled war in other parts of the country last month, the UNHCR said.

The agency hopes to get emergency relief and shelter to about 18,000 displaced people as soon as it is safe to do so, it said.

More than 1.4 million people are internally displaced in Somalia, and 560,000 Somalis live as refugees in the neighboring countries, the agency said.

The country was without a functioning government for nearly 20 years, and is now nominally governed by an internationally-backed transitional government that is trying to establish some authority over Somalia.

Source: CNN

Japanese officials interview Burmese refugees

Japan agreed in 2008 to accept 90 Burmese refugees from northern Thailand\'s Mae La camp over three years, making it the first Asian country to agree to resettle refugees on its soil. (Photo: Reuters)

Japanese officials are interviewing Burmese refugees in a camp in northern Thailand in the first step towards their resettlement in Japan.

The UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, says those being interviewed are in dire need of resettlement, having lived in camps for extended periods, some up to 20 years.

Japan agreed in 2008 to accept 90 Burmese refugees from northern Thailand’s Mae La camp over three years, making it the first Asian country to agree to resettle refugees on its soil.

The first family should leave for Japan in September.

Source: Australia Network News

UAE is safe haven for 200 refugees

Yacoub el Hillo is the new representative to the GCC region from the UN High Commission on Refugees. (Photo: Randi Sokoloff / The National)

More than 200 refugees are being provided with temporary protection in the UAE as they wait to be resettled in third countries, the UN refugee agency says.

Most of the refugees come from Iraq and Afghanistan and entered the country legally, it says.

In most cases, situations in the refugees’ home country changed while they were working in the UAE, leading them to believe they or their families would be at risk if they returned.

They then applied to the UNCHR for asylum and were granted transitional protection before being resettled in a third country.

In an interview last week, the UNHCR’s new representative for the GCC, Yacoub el Hillo said the UAE’s role in refugee issues was evolving.

Besides providing some asylum-seekers whose cases are being considered with a temporary haven, he said this country was also providing more support during international crises.

“The evolution of how asylum cases are now being processed in the UAE, and elsewhere in the GCC, suggests that there is a growing understanding of the predicament many of these refugees are facing,” he said.

“There is a sense of understanding, of readiness to facilitate the work of UNHCR with a view of helping realise a solution for these individuals.”

Mr el Hillo, 47, who is based in Riyadh, was on a week-long visit to the UAE. He said he “remains hopeful” that countries in the region, including the Emirates, will eventually sign the 1951 Refugee Convention, which defines who is a refugee and sets out the rights of those granted asylum.

“Although the UAE, like all the other five GCC countries, is not a signatory to the 1951 Convention, the spirit of the convention is very much evident,” he said.

“Hopefully that process will one day lead to an adoption of the convention, which is our ultimate hope.”

The UNHCR has been given “full access” to the small refugee population in the UAE to assess their cases and claims, he said.

The agency works closely with local authorities, which Mr el Hillo said was vital to finding solutions to the often complex cases that they encountered.

“Once UNHCR recognises a person as someone deserving of international protection, the authorities allow us full access to those people, give us time and allow for temporary protection until a solution in a third country is found,” he said.

Several cases were resolved as recently as the end of last year, when a group of asylum-seekers were resettled in Canada.

Last year, 189 people in the UAE were accepted as legitimate refugees, and are now looking to resettle in North America and Europe.

“There were cases where they otherwise would have thought they had no hope of a solution to their very long and protracted problem,” Mr el Hillo said.

On average, anywhere around the world, it takes 18 months to two years to process resettlement cases, including assessing the case and finding a solution that ends with refugees “given a new beginning in a new country”, Mr el Hillo said.

The UAE is also playing a significant role in refugee issues abroad, he said.

After millions of civilians were forced to flee the Swat Valley during fierce fighting between the Pakistani military and Taliban fighters last year, the UAE responded by signing what was hailed as the UNHCR’s largest partnership in the Arab world for three decades.

The funding was used in part to provide more than 25,000 families with relief items, including temporary shelters and roofing materials, as they began to return to their homes.

The undisclosed amount granted by the Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan Foundation was used to help them travel back to their towns and villages, Mr el Hillo said, as well as help them obtain clean water, food, health care.

As a result of that contribution and others, in 2009 the UAE became the first Arab or Muslim country to join an elite club of nations that gave more than US$20 million (Dh73.5m) to the UNHCR in a year.

Source: The National

Sec-gen: UN-recognised refugees to get ID cards

Malaysia plans to issue identification cards to refugees who are recognised by the United Nations, allowing them to stay in the country temporarily and avoid arrest as illegal immigrants.

Home Ministry secretary-general Datuk Seri Mahmood Adam said the Government would work with the UN refugee agency to issue the cards so that immigration enforcement personnel would recognise and spare UN-designated refugees.

“As long as they are recognised as refugees by the UN, they can stay here temporarily,” he said yesterday.

“They cannot work here, but they can do odd jobs.”

He could not give an exact time-line but said the initiative was in the “final stage.”

According to the UN agency, about 75,600 refugees and asylum-seekers were in Malaysia as of November last year. Most fled persecution in Myanmar.

Yante Ismail, a spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, welcomed the development.

“Proper documentation for refugees is essential to their protection,” she said.

All of the refugees in Malaysia are waiting to be resettled to a third country that officially accepts refugees.

Source: The Star