Refugees – Page 5

Do Something, Anything: Naming and Shaming in Yarmouk

April 16, 2015 by Nasheman

Residents wait to receive food aid distributed by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) at the besieged al-Yarmouk camp, south of Damascus on January 31, 2014. (Photo: unrwa.org)

by Ramzy Baroud

The population of Syria’s Palestinian Refugee Camp, Yarmouk – whose population once exceeded 250,000, dwindling throughout the Syrian civil war to 18,000 – are a microcosm of the story of a whole nation, whose perpetual pain shames us all, none excluded.

Refugees who escaped the Syrian war or are displaced in Syria itself, are experiencing the cruel reality under the harsh and inhospitable terrains of war and Arab regimes. Many of those who remained in Yarmouk were torn to shreds by the barrel bombs of the Syrian army, or victimized by the malicious, violent groupings that control the camp, including the al-Nusra Front, and as of late, IS.

Those who have somehow managed to escape bodily injury are starving. The starvation in Yarmouk is also the responsibility of all parties involved, and the “inhumane conditions” under which they subsist – especially since December 2012 – is a badge of shame on the forehead of the international community in general, and the Arab League in particular.

These are some of the culprits in the suffering of Yarmouk.

Israel

Israel bears direct responsibility in the plight of the refugees in Yarmouk. The refugees of Yarmouk are mostly the descendants of Palestinian refugees from historic Palestine, especially the northern towns, including Safad, which is now inside Israel. The camp was established in 1957, nearly a decade after the Nakba – the “Catastrophe” of 1948, which saw the expulsion of nearly a million refugees from Palestine. It was meant to be a temporary shelter, but it became a permanent home. Its residents never abandoned their right of return to Palestine, a right enshrined in UN resolution 194.

Israel knows that the memory of the refugees is its greatest enemy, so when the Palestinian leadership requested that Israel allow the Yarmouk refugees to move to the West Bank, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a condition: that they renounce their right of return. Palestinians refused. History has shown that Palestinians would endure untold suffering and not abandon their rights in Palestine. The fact that Netanyahu would place such a condition is not just a testimony to Israel’s fear of Palestinian memory, but the political opportunism and sheer ruthlessness of the Israeli government.

The Palestinian Authority (PA)

The PA was established in 1994 based on a clear charter where a small group of Palestinians “returned” to the occupied territories, set up a few institutions and siphoned billions of dollars in international aid, in exchange for abandoning the right or return for Palestinian refugees, and ceding any claim on real Palestinian sovereignty and nationhood.

When the civil war in Syria began to quickly engulf the refugees, and although such a reality was to be expected, President Mahmoud Abbas’s authority did so little as if the matter had no bearing on the Palestinian people as a whole. True, Abbas made a few statements calling on Syrians to spare the refugees what was essentially a Syrian struggle, but not much more. When IS took over the camp, Abbas dispatched his labor minister, Ahmad Majdalani to Syria. The latter made a statement that the factions and the Syrian regime would unite against IS – which, if true, is likely to ensure the demise of hundreds more.

If Abbas had invested 10 percent of the energy he spent in his “government’s” media battle against Hamas or a tiny share of his investment in the frivolous “peace process”, he could have at least garnered the needed international attention and backing to treat the plight of Palestinian refugees in Syria’s Yarmouk with a degree of urgency. Instead, they were left to die alone.

The Syrian Regime

When rebels seized Yarmouk in December 2012, President Bashar al-Assad’s forces shelled the camp without mercy while Syrian media never ceased to speak about liberating Jerusalem. The contradictions between words and deeds when it comes to Palestine is an Arab syndrome that has afflicted every single Arab government and ruler since Palestine became the “Palestine question” and the Palestinians became the “refugee problem”.

Syria is no exception, but Assad, like his father Hafez before him, is particularly savvy in utilizing Palestine as a rallying cry aimed solely at legitimizing his regime while posing as if a revolutionary force fighting colonialism and imperialism. Palestinians will never forget the siege and massacre of Tel al-Zaatar (where Palestinian refugees in Lebanon were besieged, butchered but also starved as a result of a siege and massacre carried out by right-wing Lebanese militias and the Syrian army in 1976), as they will not forget or forgive what is taking place in Yarmouk today.

Many of Yarmouk’s homes were turned to rubble because of Assad’s barrel bombs, shells and airstrikes.

The Rebels

The so-called Free Syria Army (FSA) should have never entered Yarmouk, no matter how desperate they were for an advantage in their war against Assad. It was criminally irresponsible considering the fact that, unlike Syrian refugees, Palestinians had nowhere to go and no one to turn to. The FSA invited the wrath of the regime, and couldn’t even control the camp, which fell into the hands of various militias that are plotting and bargaining amongst each other to defeat their enemies, who could possibly become their allies in their next pathetic street battles for control over the camp.

The access that IS gained in Yarmouk was reportedly facilitated by the al-Nusra Front which is an enemy of IS in all places but Yarmouk. Nusra is hoping to use IS to defeat the mostly local resistance in the camp, arranged by Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis, before handing the reins of the besieged camp back to the al-Qaeda affiliated group. And while criminal gangs are politicking and bartering, Palestinian refugees are dying in droves.

The UN and Arab League

Cries for help have been echoing from Yarmouk for years, and yet none have been heeded. Recently, the UN Security Council decided to hold a meeting and discuss the situation there as if the matter was not a top priority years ago. Grandstanding and concerned press statements aside, the UN has largely abandoned the refugees. The budget for UNRWA, which looks after the nearly 60 Palestinian refugee camps across Palestine and the Middle East, has shrunk so significantly, the agency often finds itself on the verge of bankruptcy.

The UN refugee agency, better funded and equipped to deal with crises, does little for the Palestinian refugees in Syria. Promises of funds for UNRWA, which frankly could have done much better to raise awareness and confront the international community over their disregard for the refugees, are rarely met.

The Arab League are even more responsible. The League was largely established to unite Arab efforts to respond to the crisis in Palestine, and was supposed to be a stalwart defender of Palestinians and their rights. But the Arabs too have disowned Palestinians as they are intently focused on conflicts of more strategic interests – setting up an Arab army with clear sectarian intentions and aimed largely at settling scores.

Many of Us

The Syrian conflict has introduced great polarization within a community that once seemed united for Palestinian rights. Those who took the side of the Syrian regime wouldn’t concede for a moment that the Syrian government could have done more to lessen the suffering in the camp. Those who are anti-Assad insist that the entire evil deed is the doing of him and his allies.

Both of these groups are responsible for wasting time, confusing the discussion and wasting energies that could have been used to create a well-organized international campaign to raise awareness, funds and practical mechanisms of support to help Yarmouk in particular, and Palestinians refugees in Syria in general.

But we ought to remember that there are still 18,000 trapped in Yarmouk and organize on their behalf so that, even if it is untimely, we need do something. Anything.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His is the author of The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle (Pluto Press, London). His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press, London).

Aid group: 400 feared dead after migrant boat capsizes

April 15, 2015 by Nasheman

Italy’s coastguard rescued 144 from ship off Libya, but survivors tell Save the Children that hundreds were on board.

Coastguard helped rescue 144 people and launched an air and sea search operation in hopes of finding others [AP]

by Al Jazeera

Survivors of a capsized migrant boat off Libya have told the aid group Save the Children that an estimated 400 people are believed to have drowned.

The Italian coastguard had helped rescue 144 people on Monday and immediately launched an air and sea search operation in hopes of finding others.

“According to their stories, they all departed from Libya, more than 550 people on the same boat that capsized only 24 hours after they departed,” Carlotta Bellini, a Save the Children spokeswoman in Rome, told Al Jazera.

The coastguard said it assumed that there were many dead given the size of the ship and that nine bodies had been found.

The deaths, if confirmed, would add to the skyrocketing numbers of migrants lost at sea: The International Organization for Migration estimates that up to 3,072 migrants are believed to have died in the Mediterranean in 2014, compared to an estimate of 700 in 2013.

William Spindler, a specialist on asylum and refugee issues at the UNHCR, said that due to conflict in places like Syria and the Horn of Africa, the number of people trying to find safety in Europe has increased “enormously” since last year.

Spindler said that to end the tragedies at sea, people smuggling needs to be combated, and the capacity to rescue people at sea increased.

“At the same time we need to open the possibility for refugees to come legally to Europe so that they don’t need to take these dangerous journeys,” he told Al Jazeera.

“And very importantly, we need to help countries that are hosting the vast majority of refugees in the world, countries such as Lebanon, Jordan, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya … We need to make sure they can continue to keep refugees safe – because otherwise refugees will continue these journeys and risk their lives to find safety in Europe.”

The UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, said Italy’s coastguard had saved about 8,500 migrants and refugees in the Mediterranean since Friday.

“Those rescued since last Friday included an estimated 3,000 people in four boats and 16 dinghies rescued on Monday,” the agency said in a statement.

Earlier on Tuesday, the European Union’s top migration official said the EU must quickly adapt to the growing numbers of migrants trying to reach its shores.

“The unprecedented influx of migrants at our borders, and in particular refugees, is unfortunately the new norm and we will need to adjust our responses accordingly,” the EU’s commissioner for migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, told lawmakers in Brussels.

More than 280,000 people entered the European Union illegally last year. Many came from Syria, Eritrea and Somalia and made the perilous sea journey from conflict-torn Libya.

European coastguards have been overwhelmed by the numbers. Since the weather has begun to warm, even more people have been fleeing conflict and poverty, trying to reach Europe.

Yarmouk: Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus has become ‘hell on earth’

April 10, 2015 by Nasheman

A man stands inside a demolished building in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in the Syrian capital Damascus on 6 April 2015. Around 2,000 people have been evacuated from the camp after ISIS seized large parts of it. (AFP/Youssef Karwashan)

by Hussein Ibish, NOW

Given their tragic modern history, Palestinians are used to being trapped between Scylla and Charybdis in one form or another. But rarely has the situation been as stark and alarming as has now befallen the 18,000 remaining Palestinians and Syrians in the Yarmouk refugee camp just outside of Damascus.

Much of Yarmouk has been overrun by the fanatical terrorists of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). The group’s familiar campaign of repression, beheadings and vicious abuse have already been reported in parts of Yarmouk. Meanwhile, Syrian government forces loyal to the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad have been attacking the camp with the regime’s equally familiar deadly assortment of indiscriminate firepower, including the dreaded barrel bombs.

One resident reported that in Yarmouk, “people are trapped because of the clashes and the continuous and indiscriminate bombing. It’s hard to go out at all. But they can expect where the guerilla war will take place, but they can never predict where the barrel bombs will come. There is no water. People are running out of food.”

Christopher Gunness, of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), summed up the dire situation as “beyond inhumane.” He explained that “the camp has descended into levels of inhumanity which are unknown even in Yarmouk, and this was a society in which women died in childbirth for lack of medicine, and children died of malnutrition. Now ISIS have moved into the camp and people are cowering in their battered homes, too terrified to go outside. We in UNRWA have not had access since the fighting started, so there is no U.N. food, no U.N. water, no U.N. medicine. Electricity is in very, very short supply. It is astonishing that the civilized world can stand by while 18,000 civilians, including 3,500 children, can face potential imminent slaughter and do nothing.”

One child who fled the camp reported seeing “two members of ISIS playing with a severed head as if it was a football” on Yarmouk’s Palestine Street. Residents have reportedly been reduced to surviving on 400 calories a day. Those who have made it out are the lucky ones. Many are trapped and have nowhere to go.

It’s true that the humanitarian crisis in Syria is perhaps the worst since the Second World War, and that there are many millions of other refugees and displaced persons produced by this war. But the fate of the stateless Palestinian refugees has long and properly been considered to be a special international responsibility and concern, given the direct and proactive role of the League of Nations and the United Nations in producing the circumstances that led to their exile and dispossession. This is why it is particularly poignant when Palestinian refugees find themselves caught in tragic circumstances such as the Lebanese Civil War and now the catastrophic conflict in Syria.

Yarmouk is, therefore, a particular international responsibility. The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting on the crisis on Monday, but there is no indication that the international community intends to actually do anything about this calamity. Indeed, given the shameful “hands-off” approach to Syria that the West, and particularly the United States, has adopted, and the shameless support for the brutal Syrian regime by Russia and China, it’s not immediately clear what they could do about the tragedy in Yarmouk. This is what happens when options are intentionally foreclosed and responsibilities abandoned.

Beyond the humanitarian disaster that it entails, this development is politically catastrophic as well. It signals the arrival of ISIS in southern Syria and the direct environs of Damascus in a dramatic new level of engagement and strength. They are using the same methodology they did to rise in parts of the north and east of Syria two years ago. And there is no reason to think that, with determination and perseverance, they won’t be as effective in parts of the south as they have been in the other areas that have fallen under their control.

The attack on Yarmouk is part of a broader and alarming campaign by ISIS to establish a strong presence in the south of Syria. It is attempting, with considerable success thus far, to expand its footprint in Syria even as it is slowly rolled back in Iraq. It may have just lost control of Tikrit, but it has gained control of Yarmouk.

The Islamic State’s presence in the south gives it access to the slowly developing battle for Damascus and the ongoing fight over the strategically vital mountain region of Qalamoun, near the Lebanese border. There, Hezbollah has been one of the mainstays of regime power, and if ISIS supplants more moderate rebel groups in the south, we might see a protracted battle between the two groups over Qalamoun and other areas near the Lebanese border—possibly spilling over into northern Lebanon as well.

Meanwhile, the Assad regime is trying to use the crisis to draw Palestinians into its orbit, offering them arms and “firepower” if they agree to take them in an effort to expel Islamic State fighters. That would obviously be a disastrous mistake, and one which Palestinians are unlikely, in the main, to make.

But that means that the Palestinian refugees in Syria will continue to find themselves trapped between the ruthless and brutal forces of a dictatorship that coldly and often remotely kills people indiscriminately with devices of mass murder like barrel bombs, and a monstrous terrorist organization that enjoys killing people up close and personally through a variety of antediluvian techniques of horror, from decapitation to burning people alive and flinging them from the tops of high buildings.

The situation in Yarmouk was tragic enough already, particularly given the siege imposed on the camp by the regime, but it has just gotten infinitely worse. Unfortunately, there is still the potential for an even further deterioration. “The worst is not so long as we can say ‘This is the worst.'”

The international community may be shirking its responsibility, but that doesn’t mean the responsibility goes away. On the contrary, an urgent moral responsibility that is ignored only becomes a greater ethical conundrum, and a deeper indictment.

Hussein Ibish is a columnist at NOW and The National (UAE). He is also a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. He tweets @Ibishblog

UN: Turkey hosts largest number of refugees in the world

February 27, 2015 by Nasheman

A Group of Syrian Kurds, who were sheltering in Turkey as a result of ongoing clashes between ISIS and Kurdish armed groups, return to their hometown Kobane from Sanliurfa, Turkey on February 25, 2015. Anadolu/Halil Fidan

Turkey hosts the largest number of refugees in the world amid a “staggering” growth in displacement from Syria, the UN high commissioner for refugees said Thursday.

In a briefing to the United Nations Security Council on the humanitarian situation in Syria, the high commissioner, Antonio Guterres, said the Syrian refugee crisis overwhelmed existing response capacities, with 3.8 million refugees registered in neighboring countries.

“Lebanon and Jordan have seen their populations grow, in the space of a few years, to a point they were prepared to reach only in several decades,” said Guterres. “Meanwhile, Turkey has now become the biggest refugee-hosting country in the world.”

According to the UN refugee agency, Turkey is hosting over 1.6 million Syrian refugees, who have fled a war that has paved the way for extremist groups such as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to gain a foothold in the region.

Syria has been gripped by almost constant fighting since peaceful protests against the government of President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011 turned into an armed insurgency.

Urging the international community to share the burden, Guterres said the refugee influx had severely damaged the economies of Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq.

“The nature of the refugee crisis is changing” and called for “massive international support” for countries that have opened their borders to fleeing civilians,” he explained.

“As the level of despair rises, and the available protection space shrinks, we are approaching a dangerous turning point,” he added.

Lebanon’s population has grown by nearly 25 percent since the war in Syria began in 2011, with over 1.5 million Syrian refugees sheltered in a country with a population of 4 million, making it the highest per capita concentration of refugees in the world.

The refugee influx has put huge pressure on the country’s already scarce resources and poor infrastructure, education and health systems, and has also contributed to rising tensions in a nation vulnerable to security breaches and instability.

Meanwhile, Guterres warned that almost two million Syrian refugees under the age of 18, many without access to education or jobs, “risk becoming a lost generation” and over 100,000 children born in exile could become stateless.

“If this is not addressed properly, this crisis-in-making will have huge consequences not only for the future of Syria but for the whole region,” he said.

Moreover, Guterres commended a temporary protection decree issued by Turkey last year to provide Syrians with access to the country’s labor market, as well as free education and health care.

“But despite this positive development in Turkey, it is no surprise that growing desperation is forcing more and more Syrian refugees to move further afield,” he said.

He said Syrians accounted for a third of the nearly 220,000 migrants who arrived in boats to European shores last year.

“Since the start of 2015, over 370 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean — that’s one person drowning for every twenty who made it,” he said.

He warned that thousands more could face death unless Europe decides to “step up its capacity to save lives, with a robust search and rescue operation in the Central Mediterranean.”

According to a December report by Amnesty International, wealthy nations have only taken in a “pitiful” 1.7 percent of the millions of refugees uprooted by Syria’s conflict, placing the burden on the country’s ill-equipped neighbors.

At the time, the London-based rights group blasted as shocking the failure of rich nations to host more refugees.

Amnesty said it was calling for the resettlement of five percent of Syria’s refugees by the end of 2015, and another five percent the following year.

In addition to those who fled the war-ravaged country to become refugees, the UN says more than seven million Syrians are internally displaced.

The refugees face poverty, illness and growing tensions with host communities in their already-impoverished temporary homes.

As the conflict rages, there is little prospect that the more than three million Syrians who have fled to neighboring countries and beyond will be able to return home any time soon.

(Anadolu, AFP, Al-Akhbar)

Thousands of Rohingya refugees evicted in Bangladesh

February 6, 2015 by Nasheman

Groups cleared from informal settlements without warning or assistance in order to make way for tourism

Unregistered Rohingya refugees in the Shamlapur informal settlement in Cox’s Bazar district in June of last year. Photo: Will Baxter

by Rock Ronald Rozario & Stephan Uttom, UCA News

Dhaka: Authorities in Bangladesh’s southeastern Cox’s Bazar district forced out thousands of undocumented Rohingya refugees from their makeshift refugee camps on Wednesday, leaving them homeless.

Rohingya Muslims living in about 2,500 homes were driven out of the pine forests of Shamlapur, a fishing village about 50 kilometers from Cox’s Bazar town. Officials estimated no more than 7,000 were evicted, but Prothom Alo, the country’s most popular Bengali daily reported the figure to be 35,000.

The refugees had lived in the area since the 1990s, occupying dilapidated houses and relying on fishing for their livelihood. All had fled sectarian violence in their native Rakhine state, in Myanmar just across the border.

Officials said the eviction is a part of a policy to reclaim the area from illegal encroachers along Marine Drive Road that runs through the country’s most popular tourist destination.

“We have followed instructions from the Prime Minister’s Office to clear government land close to Marine Drive Road. We have received many complaints that Rohingyas have been involved in various criminal activities in the area,” said magistrate Jahid Iqbal, assistant commissioner of land in Teknaf sub-district who led the eviction assisted by police and border guards.

“We didn’t force them out of their settlements. We asked them to move out and they left their places,” he said.

Iqbal said the evicted refugees won’t be sent across the border and that he was waiting for further instructions from higher authorities as to what aid would be provided to them.

“We have written to the government for a rehabilitation package and aid. We will have its response soon,” he added.

The evicted Rohingyas meanwhile disputed Iqbals claim that they were not forced out, saying their homes were torn down by authorities.

“At around 10am police came and told us to leave our home, but we didn’t move because we had nowhere to go. Then they smashed our home and now we are living rough,” said Hasina Begum, 45, a widowed mother of three.

“We have no roof over our heads. My children are hungry and I have nothing to feed them,” she added.

Though Rohingyas have lived in Myanmar for generations, the government considers them illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and has resisted offering them citizenship. Those who have fled across the border to escape persecution are equally unwelcome in Bangladesh.

Since 1978, thousands have fled, many to the Cox’s Bazar district where around 30,000 Rohingyas reside in two official camps, relying on government and NGO aid for survival. As many as 300,000 reside in unofficial makeshift camps, where they face strict restrictions on movements and are frequently exploited for cheap labor.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in November said the government was planning to relocate Rohingya refugees to a “better place” from their camps in Cox’s Bazar district. Details as to where that “better place” is have yet to be released.

U.S to accept thousands of Syrian refugees for resettlement

December 25, 2014 by Nasheman

Anne C. Richard (L), assistant secretary of state for population, refugees, and migration, and Nancy Lindborg (front, 2nd R), USAID assistant administrator for democracy, conflict, and humanitarian assistance, visit the Zaatari Syrian refugee camp in the Jordanian city of Mafraq, near the border with Syria, Jan. 28, 2013. (Photo by REUTERS/Ali Jarekji)

by Barbara Slavin, Al-Monitor

US Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration Anne Richard says the United States will dramatically increase the number of Syrian refugees allowed to resettle permanently in the United States from about 350 this year to close to 10,000 annually as the crisis grinds on into its fifth year.

While the number is minuscule given a total Syrian refugee population of 3.3 million, it reflects US recognition that the civil war in Syria is not about to end anytime soon and that, even when it does, Syria will need years for reconstruction and reconciliation.

In an interview with Al-Monitor Dec. 22, Richard said, “People are surprised we haven’t taken more.” She said the initial low numbers reflect the reality that “resettling refugees is never the first thing you do when people are fleeing an emerging crisis” and that other countries — in particular Germany and Sweden — have “stepped forward and offered to take a lot” of Syrian refugees.

According to the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), Germany has pledged to absorb 30,000 Syrians just since 2013 — nearly half of those processed for resettlement.

“We thought that was a great offer and unusually generous so we encouraged UNHCR to take advantage of that,” Richard said.

After initial vetting by UNHCR, Syrian refugees who want to resettle in the United States must be interviewed by officers of the Department of Homeland Security at US diplomatic facilities in Amman, Jordan or Istanbul, Turkey. That leaves out a million Syrians who have fled to Lebanon and large populations in Iraq and Egypt. Richard said lack of space and security concerns have kept the United States from interviewing Syrian refugees at the US Embassy in Beirut but that US officials are looking at the possibility of setting up a refugee vetting operation in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq.

UNHCR seeks to identify the most vulnerable candidates, Richard said. “By Dec. 15, we had 10,000 referrals from UNHCR and they are coming in at 1,000 to 1,500 a month.”

Asked how many of those referred would be accepted, Richard said, “I think most” because they are likely to meet the United State’s definition of a refugee as someone fleeing persecution or threats because of race, ethnicity, religion, political beliefs or membership to a particular social group.

Refugees must also pass medical and security checks. “The last part has been tricky in the past,” Richard said, but added that it is not likely to be a major problem with the Syrians referred by UNHCR. She said she expected them to comprise mostly widows with children, the elderly and people with medical conditions. “It will be fairly clear that they are not terrorists bent on harming Americans,” she said.

No preference is given to those with relatives already in the United States but if they do have family among the estimated half million Syrian Americans, “we try to reunite them because that can improve their chances of doing well in the US,” Richard said.

There are large populations of Arab Americans outside Detroit and in San Diego, but the Syrian refugees who have arrived in the United States recently have been settled all around the country.

According to the latest State Department statistics, 33 Syrian refugees were sent to North Carolina so far this year, 30 to Texas, 24 to both California and Illinois, and only five to Michigan.

Richard said her office works with nine networks in the United States, six of them faith-based, to identify communities willing to help refugees find new homes. “They sign up to take certain numbers based on what their organizations can handle,” she said.

This past year has been extremely challenging for her office, and not just because of Syria. The year started with humanitarian crises in two other countries — South Sudan and the Central African Republic — followed over the summer by Ukraine, a new Gaza war, a flood of unaccompanied children from Central America crossing the US border, the Ebola epidemic in West Africa and the sudden advance of the group that calls itself the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq.

“It’s been a tough year,” Richard, who is also a former executive with the International Rescue Committee, said with some understatement.

But on the positive side, she said, “We’ve kept millions and millions of people alive” who otherwise would have succumbed to hunger and disease.

While the United States remains the world’s leader in providing humanitarian relief — allocating about $6 billion for refugee assistance, disaster assistance and food aid in the past year and $3 billion for Syria since 2011 — other countries such as Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates are beginning to make regular contributions to the UN agencies that provide most humanitarian aid.

Even Saudi Arabia, which has been reluctant to participate in such UN programs in the past, gave half a million dollars to help Iraqis cope with the crisis caused by IS this summer, Richard said.

“We would like to see more governments contributing and those new to doing so to do it routinely in a dependable way … so that organizations like UNHCR and the World Food Program can plan ahead,” she said.

The United States takes in about 70,000 refugees a year, of whom Iraqis accounted for the largest number in the last fiscal year — nearly 20,000. They were followed by more than 16,000 Burmese, more than 9,000 Bhutanese, more than 7,000 Somalis and more than 4,000 Cubans. The number of Bhutanese is dwindling, however, opening up room for more Syrians.

Richard said it was her impression that the number of Syrians fleeing their country has “leveled off a little bit” but that the problem of those internally displaced and in need of aid is more acute than ever.

“A lot of people are trying to stay and make it inside Syria,” she said, noting that the number of internally displaced had grown from 6 million six months ago to 7.6 million now, with more than 200,000 in areas that cannot be reached by outsiders because of the fighting. “It’s hard for me to understand how they are managing,” she said.

The UN envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, has floated a proposal to “freeze” the fighting, starting in Syria’s second largest city, Aleppo, to ease the humanitarian crisis there.

However, Richard expressed skepticism about the plan.

“After Staffan de Mistura came through [Washington recently], everyone wanted to give it a chance but I don’t think we have much evidence of a change,” she said. “There has been modest cooperation from the Assad regime but the thinking is that they haven’t suddenly adopted a whole new pro-humanitarian approach. It’s more that they are trying to distinguish themselves from [IS],” she said..

Others who work on the Syria crisis also expressed pessimism about a near-term solution to the conflict.

“I can’t believe that I’m still doing this after almost four years,” Sasha Ghosh-Siminoff, president and co-founder of an aid group called People Demand Change, told Al-Monitor. “When I left Syria in 2011, we all thought the regime would decide to save itself and make reforms, crumble quickly or that the international community would step in. Unfortunately none of that has come to pass.”

UN agencies appeal for $8.4 million to address Syrian refugee crisis

December 19, 2014 by Nasheman

Displaced Syrian children stand in muddy water after heavy rains in the Bab al-Salama camp for people fleeing the violence in Syria on December 11, 2014, on the border with Turkey. AFP / Baraa al-Halabi

by Al Akhbar

The UN appealed on Thursday for $8.4 billion to provide emergency aid and longer-term help to nearly 18 million people in Syria and across the region hit by the drawn-out conflict.

Meanwhile, the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF appealed for $900 million to help children affected by the war in Syria.

For the first time, the United Nations’ appeal includes funding for life-saving food, shelter and other humanitarian aid, as well as development support, as the bloody war in Syria heads towards a fifth year.

UN agencies said at the appeal launch in Berlin that $2.9 billion (2.4 billion euros) were needed to help 12.2 million people inside Syria in 2015.

A further $5.5 billion is eyed for Syrians who have sought refuge in neighboring countries and for more than a million people in host communities, it said.

The Berlin appeal for Syria is slightly higher than an indicative amount announced in Geneva earlier this month, which did not include funding needs of neighboring countries.

The UN is planning for up to 4.3 million refugees in countries neighboring Syria by the end of 2015, it added.

“For those that think that this is a lot of money, I don’t remember any bailout of any medium-sized bank that has cost less than this,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres told reporters.

He warned that refugees and people displaced inside Syria had exhausted their savings and that host countries were at “breaking point.”

United Nations humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said Syria had slumped from a middle income country to struggling with widespread poverty.

“People affected by conflict need food, shelter, water, medicine and protection. But they also need support in rebuilding their livelihoods, maintaining education and health services and rebuilding fragmented communities,” Amos, UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, said.

“The conflict in Syria is not only destroying people’s lives today but will continue to erode their capacity to cope far into the future if we don’t take a more holistic approach now,” she added.

Germany hosted an international conference on the Syrian refugee crisis in October which vowed to extend long-term financial aid to countries such as Lebanon and Jordan struggling under the influx of millions of Syrian refugees.

“The humanitarian crisis in Syria and the neighboring countries poses a threat to the stability of the whole region,” Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Thursday.

“This is a call to the solidarity of all nations, and my country is willing to do its part,” he added.

UNICEF asks for $900 million for Syrian children

The appeal comes hours after the UNICEF said it needs more than $900 million to help children affected by the war in Syria next year, and appealed to donors for support.

“The Syria crisis represents the biggest threat to children of recent times,” UNICEF’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, Maria Calivis, said ahead of the major UN appeal for Syrian refugees. “By the end of 2015, the lives of over 8.6 million children across the region will have been torn apart by violence and forced displacement.”

Calivis said the agency’s plans for next year include doubling both the number of Syrian children with access to safe water and sanitation, and the number with access to education.

The agency will continue vaccination campaigns against polio, she said, and deliver care including cash grants and winter clothing to the families of some 850,000 children affected by the conflict.

“These commitments – costed at $903 million (732 million euros) – represent the bare minimum,” she said, calling on supporters “to help us make these commitments a reality.”

Earlier in December, UNICEF declared 2014 a devastating year for children with as many as 15 million caught in conflicts in Palestine, Syria, Iraq, South Sudan, Central African Republic, and Ukraine.

A UN panel investigating war crimes in Syria cited in a report in November cases of abductions, rape and other forms of sexual and physical violence against women and children, including the forced recruitment of minors by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The UN report also said that the US-led airstrikes against ISIS in Syria and Iraq “have led to some civilian casualties,” including scores of children.

Syria’s conflict, which evolved from mass demonstrations against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime to a war that has left more than 200,000 dead, has forced more than half of the country’s population to flee their homes.

A UN refugee agency (UNHCR) report published mid November shows that about 13.6 million people have been displaced by conflict in Syria and Iraq, many without food or shelter as winter starts. The 13.6 include 7.2 million displaced within Syria, in addition to the estimated 3.3 million Syrian refugees abroad.

On December 9, the World Food Program (WFP) announced that the UN will resume food aid to Syrian refugees in neighboring countries, following a campaign to raise funds for a halted program offering food vouchers.

The announcement came after a campaign by the WFP seeking funds to cover a $64 million shortfall which had forced the agency to suspend the program at the beginning of December.

Amnesty International announced this month that wealthy nations have only taken in a “pitiful” number of the millions of refugees uprooted by Syria’s conflict, placing the burden on the country’s ill-equipped neighbors.

“Around 3.8 million refugees from Syria are being hosted in five main countries within the region: Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt,” said Amnesty.

“Only 1.7 percent of this number have been offered sanctuary by the rest of the world,” the rights group added.

It is worth noting that the US House of Representatives adopted a $584.2 billion annual defense spending bill on December, which includes emergency funding for military operations against ISIS and training and equipping the so-called “moderate” Syrian rebels. However, it doesn’t include providing any humanitarian assistance to Syrian refugees.

The US annual defense bill could secure WFP’s humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees for roughly 700 years.

(AFP, Al-Akhbar)

Rich nations 'failing to help Syria refugees'

December 6, 2014 by Nasheman

Rights group says “pitiful” number taken in by wealthy countries, with burden placed mainly on ill-equipped neighbours.

A baby looks out from the window of a bus after disembarking from a crippled freighter carrying hundreds of refugees trying to migrate to Europe, at the coastal Cretan port of Ierapetra, Nov. 27. AP Photo

by Al Jazeera

Affluent nations have taken in a “pitiful” number of the million of Syrian refugees uprooted by the country’s civil war, placing the burden on Syria’s ill-equipped neighbours, according to Amnesty International.

The London-based rights group, in advance of a December 9 donors’ conference in Geneva, deplored on Friday what it called the shocking failure of rich nations to host refugees.

“Around 3.8 million refugees from Syria are being hosted in five main countries within the region: Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt,” Amnesty International said in the statement.

Highlighting what it referred to as “the pitiful numbers of resettlement places offered by the international community”, the group said that Russia, China and the Gulf Arab states had not offered a single location for resettlement of refugees.

Meanwhile, the European Union as a whole, excluding Germany, has pledged to take in only 0.17 percent of refugees residing in countries bordering Syria.

“The shortfall … is truly shocking,” said Sherif Elsayed-Ali, Amnesty International’s head of refugee and migrants’ rights.

“The complete absence of resettlement pledges from the Gulf is particularly shameful. Linguistic and religious ties should place the Gulf states at the forefront of those offering safe shelter.”

The failure of wealthy nations to share the burden had placed a increasing strain on host countries, which were largely ill-equipped for the influx of people escaping violence in Syria.

Amnesty International said it was calling for the resettlement of five percent of Syria’s refugees by the end of 2015, and an additional five percent the following year.

The plan would accommodate approximately 380,000 refugees identified by the UN as being particularly vulnerable including lone children and torture survivors.

“Countries cannot ease their consciences with cash pay-outs then simply wash their hands of the matter,” Ali said.

“Those with the economic means to do so must play a greater role.”

In addition to those who fled the war-ravaged country as external refugees, the UN says more than seven million Syrians are internally displaced.

The refugees face poverty, illness and growing tensions with host communities in their already-impoverished temporary homes.

Syria’s civil war began in March 2011, escalating into a bloody civil war that has displaced around half the country’s population.

UNHCR: Aid cuts, cold weather to have “devastating impact” on Syrian refugees

December 5, 2014 by Nasheman

Syrian refugees in the northeastern town of Ersal, Lebanon. Photo / Marwan Tahtah

by Al Akhbar

Aid workers fear a major humanitarian crisis for millions of Syrian refugees in the Middle East, especially in Lebanon, after funding gaps forced the United Nations to cut food assistance for 1.7 million people.

Meanwhile, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday that the number of internally displaced Iraqis had surpassed two million in 2014.

The UN’s World Food Program said Monday it needed $64 million (51 million euros) to fund its food voucher program for December alone, and that “many donor commitments remain unfulfilled.”

The announcement came as aid groups struggle to prepare millions of refugees for the impending winter, particularly those living in informal camps in cold, mountainous areas.

“It’s going to be a devastating impact. This couldn’t come at a worse time,” said Ron Redman, regional spokesman for the UN refugee agency UNHCR, “but we’re trying to get everyone prepared for winter and if you look at the conditions particularly in Lebanon in some of these informal settlements, the conditions are already very bad.”

“We’re doing everything we can… to keep their shelters at least warm and as dry as possible. But you can be warm and dry, but if you don’t have food, you’re in big trouble.”

WFP’s food vouchers were helping nearly two million refugees scattered in countries around the Middle East as each registered refugee receives a card that is topped up with money each month.

The amount differs from country to country, but is intended to allow each refugee to buy food equivalent to 2,100 calories per day, but for most of the agency’s recipients, December’s top-up has not arrived.

A nightmare for refugees

Worst-hit in the region is Lebanon, where more than 800,000 of the 1.1 million Syrian refugees in the country were receiving WFP food voucher support.

Lebanon hosts the largest number of refugees from neighboring Syria and has this been the biggest challenge among recipient countries.

From 2011, beginning of the war in Syria, till 2015, the UNHCR budget allocated for the country has increased drastically from $13.7 million to a planned 556.8.

In Jordan, some 450,000 refugees will not benefit from food vouchers this month, though around 90,000 living in the UN’s Zaatari and Azraq camps will continue to receive assistance.

In Turkey and Egypt, there are sufficient funds to provide aid until December 13 but not beyond, said WFP’s Regional Emergency Coordinator Muhannad Hadi.

“It’s going to be a nightmare for refugees,” Hadi told AFP.

“Those people are depending on the WFP to feed them, most of them are totally dependent on us. They have no income.”

Many refugees struggle to make ends meet even with international aid, and in Lebanon and elsewhere they often live in squalid informal camps, exposed to the heat of summer and cold of winter.

Across the region, they also face increasing tension with host communities angry about the strain that the refugee influx has put on sparse local resources.

The lack of food will “potentially cause further tensions, instability and insecurity in the neighboring host countries,” WFP Executive Director Ertharin Cousin said in a statement.

“We are suffering more-and-more, day-by-day. The world is ignoring our misery,” Abu Yaman, a Syrian refugee living in Ramtha in north Jordan, told AFP.

“The Jordanian government helps us, but Jordan is already a poor country and we can’t expect a lot from a country that was already suffering a financial crisis before hosting hundreds of thousands of Syrians,” added the 30-year-old, from the southern Syrian province of Daraa.

Latest in string of cuts

The announcement from WFP is the latest in a series of cuts made by agencies and NGOs assisting more than three million Syrian refugees.

They say funding pledges have not materialized, and “donor fatigue” is beginning to set in, nearly four years after the conflict in Syria began with anti-government protests in March 2011.

Early October, WFP announced it will no longer be able to provide humanitarian aid for those stuck in Syria as well as Syrian refugees bordering the war-torn country.

Last year, UNHCR announced it was cutting some of its aid to more than a quarter of refugees in Lebanon, partly due to funding shortfalls.

The diminishing humanitarian assistance has created bitterness and disappointment among many refugees.

“They want us to go back and die in Syria,” 21-year-old Khaldun Kaddah, who lives in Jordan, said of WFP’s announcement.

“Shame on them… Western countries talk too much about human rights and the truth is that they do not care for our basic rights.”

A UN refugee agency (UNHCR) report published mid November shows that about 13.6 million people, equivalent to the population of London, have been displaced by conflicts in Syria and Iraq, many without food or shelter as winter starts.

The 13.6 million include 7.2 million displaced within Syria – an increase from a long-held UN estimate of 6.5 million, as well as 3.3 million Syrian refugees abroad, 1.9 million displaced in Iraq and 190,000 who have left to seek safety.

The case for Iraqi refugees

According to UNHCR, developments in Iraq have led to a significant increase in registration requests in Lebanon since June 2014.

Although Syrian refugees are the main concern in the country, an estimate of 6,100 Iraqi refugees are also present, forming an 87% of the 8,000 non-Syrian, non-Palestinian refugees.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday that the number of Iraqis internally displaced nationwide to over 2 million in 2014.

Nineveh in northern Iraq has suffered the greatest population loss with more than 940,000 people fleeing the town due to clashes between the Iraqi army and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group, IOM spokesperson Joel Millman told reporters in Geneva.

Iraq’s western province of Anbar has suffered the second largest displacement with more than 540,000 people, Millman said.

ISIS swept through Iraq’s heartland in June .

The Kurdish Regional Government is hosting the majority of the displaced, while the central region of Iraq is hosting around 45 percent of the displaced, he added.

The United States, backed by some Western and Arab allies, launched airstrikes against the group in Iraq in August, expanding operations to targets in Syria a month later.

However, the air campaign, which Washington says aims to degrade ISIS’ military capability, remains the subject of debate, with critics pointing to ISIS’ advances and battlefield successes despite the raids.

(AFP, Anadolu, Al-Akhbar)

UNHCR: 13.6 million displaced by conflict in Iraq and Syria

November 12, 2014 by Nasheman

Syrian Kurdish refugees try to get warm around a fire at a refugee camp in the town of Suruc, Sanliurfa province, on November 7, 2014. AFP / Aris Messinis

by Al-Akhbar

About 13.6 million people, equivalent to the population of London, have been displaced by conflicts in Syria and Iraq, many without food or shelter as winter starts, the UN refugee agency said on Tuesday.

“The whole humanitarian community is facing shortfalls. People are becoming numb,” said Amin Awad, who heads UNHCR’s Middle East and North Africa bureau.

“Now when we talk about a million people displaced over two months, or 500,000 overnight, the world is just not responding,” he told reporters in Geneva.

The vast majority of Syrian refugees have gone to Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey, countries which Awad said “are putting us all to shame” with their support for homeless Syrian families.

“Other countries in the world, especially the Europeans and beyond, should open their borders and share the burden.”

UNHCR says it is short of $58.5 million in donations to prepare 990,000 people for winter, money that would cover basic supplies such as plastic sheeting and warm clothing.

Awad said Russia and China, both in the UN Security Council, came in bottom of a list of top donors and should contribute more.

“Politically they cannot really be indifferent, therefore humanitarian is an imperative and it has to be put first and foremost if there is no (political) settlement … They need to contribute one way or the other, like the others do,” he said.

Lack of funds

The UN refugee agency said Tuesday it had been forced to slash the number of people it can help prepare for winter in conflict-ravaged Syria and Iraq for lack of funds.

Awad lamented that his agency was forced to make “tough choices.”

The agency said it was facing a shortfall of $58 million (47 million euros) for its efforts to prepare millions of displaced people in Syria and Iraq for winter.

As a result, as many as one million displaced people desperate for blankets, kerosene, warm clothes and other items needed to keep warm and dry may have to go without assistance, it warned.

“I wish we could support everybody, and I wish that we could keep everybody warm,” Amin told reporters in Geneva, adding however that “the world is not responding.”

“Many fled with nothing,” UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told reporters.

With winter already on the doorstep, and temperatures falling as low as minus 16 degrees Celsius in some parts of Syria and Iraq, UNHCR has already invested $154 million in winter aid for the devastated countries.

But because of the funding shortfall, it has been forced to revise down the number of people it can help.

The agency had planned to help 1.4 million people in Syria and 600,000 people in Iraq, but now expects to reach only 620,000 in Syria and 240,000 in Iraq.

As a result, UNHCR said it was being forced to make “some very tough choices over who to prioritize.”

“The needs are massive but funding has not kept up apace with the new displacement,” Fleming said.

Those at higher, colder altitudes, as well as vulnerable people such as the sick, the elderly and newborns, are first in line for aid, Amin said.

He noted that 11 young children froze to death in Syria last year.

“The same can happen this year with children, elderly and frail persons,” he warned.

(Reuters, AFP)