Fears for 17 missing refugee children

Source: The Age

By Natalie O’Brien

Seveteen asylum seeking boys suspected of being trafficked from Vietnam have vanished from immigration facilities around the country, including the Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation centre.

Despite some of the boys disappearing months ago – including at least seven from the Broadmeadows facility – authorities admit they have not been searching for them.

UNHCR employs alternative strategies in managing the Dadaab camps

Source: UNHCR

This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson Andrej Mahecic – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at the press briefing, on 27 January 2012, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

In an effort to maintain operations despite prevailing insecurity and reduced humanitarian access at Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camps, UNHCR has been exploring ways to ensure uninterrupted assistance and services in the world’s largest refugee settlement.

Africa: High cost of child trafficking

Source: IRIN Africa

A child miner in Lagos, Nigeria (Photo: ILO)

Forced child labour remains rampant in Central Africa, where poverty fuels the trafficking of children from poorer countries to oil-rich states such as Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and the Republic of Congo, according to experts.

“Trafficking in children is real,” said Gabon’s social affairs director-general, Mélanie Mbadinga Matsanga. “Gabon, for example, is considered an Eldorado and draws a lot of West African immigrants who traffic children.”

Barnett wants asylum solution

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

By Rania Spooner

A moving encounter with a young girl who called a detention centre home may have touched the West Australian Premier, but it has not changed his position on offshore processing.

Premier Colin Barnett told the story of a meeting with a girl who when asked where she was from told him the name of a detention centre, rather than her nationality, at citizenship ceremony in Perth today.

Urban teacher gives up life in Congo to start afresh in Angola

Source: UNHCR

 

People have started returning to Angola under the relaunched voluntary repatriation programme. These people were on the first convoy from Bas-Congo province to northern Angola last November. (Photo: G.Dubourthoumieu/ UNHCR)

 

Pedro is the kind of urban professional that Angola needs to help build stability and a viable future after years of devastating conflict.

But he was born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and has mixed memories of the short time that he stayed in the land of his parents after Angola gained independence from Portugal in 1975. Recalling his life, Pedro went from the depths of losing his parents as a boy, and having to fend for himself, to the high of graduating from university.

UN refugee agency warns of potential polio cases in Ethiopian camps

Source: UN News Centre

With famine crisis thousands of Somalis flee to Ethiopia refugee camps

The United Nations refugee agency today voiced its concern over reports of two suspected polio cases this week among Somali refugees living in camps in Ethiopia and three cases in the surrounding community.“The immediate priority is to confirm the outbreak, and samples have been collected and sent to Addis Ababa for laboratory confirmation,” said spokesperson for the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Melissa Fleming at a press briefing in Geneva.

South Sudan: UN condemns refugee camp air raid

Source: BBC News Africa

The UN has denounced the bombing of a camp housing some 5,000 refugees in South Sudan near the border with Sudan.

A boy was injured and 14 other people went missing during the air raid in El Foj in Upper Nile state on Monday, the UN refugee agency said.

Refugees struggle with identity

Source: The West Australian

By Alana Buckley-Carr

Children from the Horn of Africa are growing up in Perth with identity issues as they try to adapt to a Western culture while living with traditions of the past, according to migration experts.

Last financial year, WA took in the lowest number of Sudanese in almost 10 years, with just 144 settler arrivals born in Sudan.

Sudanese head south with their belongings and a fierce sense of hope

Source: UNHCR

Members of a family of southern Sudanese sit in their shelter after arriving in South Sudan from the north. (Photo: Paul Banks/ UN Photo)

Reida Sustine was two years old when her parents fled Juba in the south and headed northwards to the national capital, Khartoum, during the Sudan civil war. Like many others from the south, her family tried to forget the conflict. As she grew older, she made a living from selling fish caught in the Nile, which divides at Khartoum.

The capital may have been a refuge, but daily life was a struggle. When South Sudan became an independent state 25 years later on July 9, 2011, Sustine knew it was time to go home. She gathered together her belongings and rode a barge heading south down the Nile. In two weeks she arrived back in Juba.

Forgotten: The stolen people of the Sinai

Source: The Independent

By Jerome Taylor

Thousands of poor migrants from across Africa are being kidnapped by Bedouin gangs

Refugees from sub-Saharan Africa are being kidnapped, tortured and ransomed for thousands of dollars in the Egyptian Sinai in what human rights activists say is the world’s forgotten hostage crisis. Over the past year, thousands of desperate migrants from Eritrea, Sudan and Ethiopia have been kidnapped by Bedouin tribesmen who are taking advantage of continuing instability in Egypt to ramp up their lucrative trade.

Migrants have reported being rounded up by gang members and held in specially constructed jails where they are frequently tortured until relatives in Europe or Africa come up with thousands of dollars.