Refugees

Photo: Burundian student Mmane Alini, 17, takes notes in class at Hope Secondary School in Nduta refugee camp, Tanzania. © UNHCR/Georgina Goodwin

Refugees, Migrants Need Courageous European Leadership

Viewpoint by Idriss Jazairy

Ambassador Idriss Jazairy is the executive director of the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue and the former head of a UN specialised agency, IFAD. This article first appeared* in EURACTIV on February 5, 2018 and is being re-published with their permission.

GENEVA (IDN) – More people than ever are on the move under the centrifugal impulse of globalisation. Fifteen percent of the world’s population or one billion of the Earth’s seven billion people are considered as people on the move. Host developing countries or societies bear the brunt of those that flee from their homes.

: UN Bureau; OPINION; 08 February 2018

Photo: The entrance to Holot immigration detention centre, Negev desert, Israel. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Decision to Deport African Immigrants Sparks a Debate in Israel

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – Under a so-called “infiltrator’s law”, more than 1,000 African asylum seekers in Israel face deportation from Israeli detention centres starting in March.

Speaking at a recent Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the harsh enforcement policy. “We are not acting against refugees,” he said. “We are acting against illegal migrants who come here not as refugees but for work needs. Israel will continue to offer asylum for genuine refugees and will remove illegal migrants from its midst.”

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 01 February 2018

Photo: Eritreans protest next to the European Commission headquarters in Brussels. Credit: Klara Smits.

Eritrean Refugees in the Netherlands Want Ban on Diaspora Tax by Asmara

By Reinhardt Jacobsen and Klara Smits

AMSTERDAM | BRUSSELS (IDN) – Hundreds of Eritreans have been taking to the streets in various cities and refugee camps all over the world against the Eritrean regime to express solidarity with the unusual protests that took place in Asmara, the country's capital, on October 31. The latest in the protest series was on December 22, 2017 in Brussels next to the European Commission headquarters.

Among the protesters' demand is the closure of the Eritrean embassy in Brussels, which is responsible for the Netherlands, because people who have fled the country must fear the ‘long arm' of the regime and a culture of fear perpetrated by Asmara, according to a Dutch research report. This has prompted a debate in the Netherlands about the Eritrean regime's repressive activities in the country.

: Klara Smits; THE WORLD; Africa; 22 December 2017

Traumatised Rohingya Women Bear the Brunt of Persecution

By Naimul Haq

COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (IDN) – Shefali Aktar, mother of three, fled her home in Thaphanbin, a tiny village overlooking the Arakan Mountains in Rakhine state in Myanmar.

The 22-year-old pregnant woman escaped near death when her neighbour helped her and her children to hide in the nearby forest the night after the entire population of about 600 families in her village was wiped out.

“I went back to my village the next evening to find my husband. Instead, I found dead bodies,” says Shefali, breaking down in tears as she continues to narrate the horror.