 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
By Ronald Joshua
GENEVA (IDN) – Experts with first-hand experience in the migrant and refugee crisis have underlined problems during their work on the ground, in coordinating rescue operations and aid distribution, or documenting and raising awareness of the situation caused by the current massive displacement of people worldwide turning into a politicized crisis of solidarity, with closed border policies and the rise of xenophobic, populist trends.
By Klara Smits
BRUSSELS (IDN) – Multiple independent sources report that at least three people were killed and around 20 injured in an attack on the Qasr bin Ghashir detention centre in southern Tripoli. The attack seemed specifically aimed at the refugees and migrants in the centre, according to witnesses who say that the rebel militia fighters of General Khalifa Haftar were behind the attack.
Reports say that after a brief lull, the fighting around Libya’s capital Tripoli has intensified in the past week. In the southern districts of Tripoli, forces loyal to the UN-recognised Tripoli-based government clashed with the forces of General Khalifa Haftar.
By Sharon Birch-Jeffrey*
NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) – To experience a taste of African culture deep inside the Big Apple, visitors – including many Senegalese – turn to Le Petit Senegal (Little Senegal), a West African neighborhood in West Harlem, New York.
African grocery shops, fabric stores, hair braiding parlors and regional restaurants sit shoulder to shoulder along the streets. The Sandaga Market of Little Senegal showcases a strong blend of African cultures, customs and languages, symbolizing efforts by African immigrants to project and protect their cultural identities.
By Caroline Mwanga
NEW YORK (IDN) – Contrary to the widespread view coloured by the too-common images of young African migrants crossing the Mediterranean, migration in Africa is dominated by Africans moving within Africa, says Ashraf El Nour, the director of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Office to the UN in New York.
They migrate mostly to neighbouring countries, or within the same region. Africa's share of global migration, which on the whole stood at 258 million in 2017, are 36 million people of which 19 million moved within the continent and 17 million outside Africa, El Nour told Africa Renewal's Zipporah Musau.
By Ramesh Jaura
BRUSSELS (IDN) – When the Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed signed in July a peace deal after two decades of war and ensuing violent border clashes, "a new era of peace and friendship" was felt to have begun in the Horn of Africa comprising Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia.
Six months on, African leaders and close observers of the situation in the region, attending the Eritrean diaspora conference in Brussels, have expressed grave concern that "peace and friendship" have yet to dawn on relations between the government in Asmara and Eritreans.
Viewpoint by Yossef Ben-Meir and Manon Burbidge
While Yossef Ben-Meir, Ph.D. is a sociologist and President of the High Atlas Foundation, based in Marrakech, Manon Burbidge is a post-graduate studying Human Ecology at Lund University, Sweden and currently interning at the High Atlas Foundation.
MARRAKECH (IDN) – December 2018 is gearing up to be a pivotal month for migration on the world stage, and the epicentre is here, in Marrakech, Morocco, with two high-level fora taking place concerning development and migration.
However, in order for the discussions that take place at such conferences to be impactful on the lives of ordinary people.
By Robert Johnson
BRUSSELS (IDN) – Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) regret "the campaign of disinformation" that has led to several countries withdrawing their support from the United Nations Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM). They emphasize that the migration compact is a non-legally binding framework that does not create new obligations for states and is in full respect of the principle of national sovereignty.
164 out of the 193 member states of the UN that had gathered in Marrakech approved the Compact by consensus on December 10, defying the United States and other countries that had withdrawn, citing concerns about migrant flows and national sovereignty.
By Reinhard Jacobsen
BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) – As the United Nations Global Compact fractures, migration has become a key issue in negotiations between the European Union (EU) and 79 countries from Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP) which kicked off in September 2018 to hammer out a successor to the Cotonou Partnership Agreement set to expire in 2020.
The ACP-EU Partnership Agreement, signed in Cotonou, Benin, on June 23, 2000, was concluded for a 20-year period from 2000 to 2020. It is the most comprehensive partnership agreement between developing countries and the EU. In 2010, ACP-EU cooperation was adapted to new challenges such as climate change, food security, regional integration, State fragility and aid effectiveness.
Viewpoint by Mariam Traore Chazalnoël
The writer is a specialist in environmental and climate migration at the International Organization for Migration (IOM)'s Office to the United Nations in New York. She has been working since 2013 on the global governance of environmental migration and regularly publishes on the topic. This article first appeared in UNCCD Science to Policy Weblog on 17 August 2018. – The Editor
NEW YORK (IDN) – The plight of people migrating in the context of environmental degradation, climate change impacts and natural disasters and the potential governance responses to such challenges have received a lot of attention in recent years.
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*
LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – The arrival in Sweden of 163,000 refugees, mainly Syrians, in 2015 – making for a higher proportion of Sweden's population than almost any other European country – has been used by the far right to drum up broader fears about immigration. A recent spate of shootings, grenade attacks and burnt-out cars has made many Swedes feel afraid of what is going on. This is despite international surveys showing it's the best nation at everything from economic competitiveness to doing good for humanity to achieving happiness.
