Hatnews

Afghan refugees allowed to stay longer in Pakistan

Webmaster — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:06:23 +0000

IRIN – The refugee cards of about 1.7 million Afghans in Pakistan will be extended until December 2012 and the Afghan government will have to enhance its reintegration services, according to a tripartite meeting of Afghanistan, Pakistan and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

“UNHCR plans to assist around 165,000 people who may opt to return to Afghanistan from Pakistan and Iran in 2010,” Nader Farhad, a UNHCR spokesman in Kabul, told IRIN, adding that the return would be gradual and voluntary.

The fatal failings of the UK asylum system

Webmaster — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:00:56 +0000

The Guardian – Last weekend, three members of a family jumped together to their deaths from a Glasgow tower block. It’s said that they were Russians whose asylum claims had been rejected. However, most deaths among asylum seekers don’t make national news, as is made clear by a report compiled by Harmit Athwal for the Institute for Race Relations in 2006.

Driven to Desperate Measures catalogued the deaths of 213 asylum seekers, refugees and migrant workers who had been murdered in racist attacks or died in accidents since 1989; 57 had killed themselves, and – a little-known, appalling fact – nine of these had set themselves on fire, mostly in public places; and 11 died at their own hands in immigration detention centres or holding centres. But most of the suicides took place in the community, which can be a cold place for fugitives from horrors most of us will never have to face.

I rang Athwal to ask if there had been more suicides since her grim dossier came out. She opened a file and counted up to 39, although this, she said, wasn’t a comprehensive figure. She is the only person keeping count, getting details from asylum seeker and refugee networks, NGOs, charities, campaigners, social workers and local papers.

Aid workers battle to help desperate refugees

Webmaster — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:50:12 +0000

IRIN – With at least 67,000 refugees in southwest Uganda, the government and aid workers are still battling inadequate resources in what a UN official described as a “silent emergency”.

“We can hardly meet international standards of indicators such as water, health and food,” Nemia Temporal, deputy representative of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Uganda, told IRIN on 8 March. “For instance, we are delivering 15 litres [of water] per person per day instead of the standard 20l.”

After years of protracted conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with large influxes to neighbouring countries, the situation of the majority Congolese refugees is no longer considered that urgent by the wider aid community, Temporal said.

New fresh claims case

Webmaster — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:55:28 +0000

Free Movement – The Court of Appeal has re-visited the proper approach to deciding whether fresh asylum claims meet the rule 353 test. The case is R (on the application of YH) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] EWCA Civ 116 and it effectively supersedes WM (DRC) and interprets the Supreme Court decision in BA (Nigeria). In fact none of it comes as a surprise, though, and it adds little if anything new.

Firstly, giving the leading judgment, Lord Justice Carnwath holds that there is no practical difference between the rule 353 test for a fresh claim and the clearly unfounded test at section 94 of the 2002 Act. Their Lordships in the Supreme Court expended a lot of intellectual energy saying that the tests were different, but there we go. It’s all counting angels.

Glasgow deaths raise concern over treatment of asylum seekers

Webmaster — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:50:15 +0000

Ekklesia – A charity has expressed concern at the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers after three people plunged to their deaths from the 15th floor of a block of flats in Glasgow.

The tragic incident took place on Sunday morning, 7 March 2010.

Police have been investigating the deaths of two men and a woman at the Red Road block of flats in the Springburn area of Glasgow, reports Independent Catholic News (http://www.indcatholicnews.com/).

The identity of the three has not been confirmed, but neighbours believe they may be asylum seekers from Kosovo whose applications were rejected.

Robina Qureshi, the director of Positive Action in Housing (PAH), said: “The Red Road flats has housed hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers. We are concerned because [many] of our clients who are from refugee communities were living in the area. They live their daily lives under extreme pressure for years because their lives are on hold while they wait to hear if they will be granted leave to remain by the UK Borders Agency.”

Qureshi added: “As staff, we are daily confronted with the reality of asylum seekers coming into the office crying and upset because they have just been told they must leave the country and their money and housing is stopped a week later. It’s a big shock, having nowhere to live, no money for food, and being forbidden to work, and it’s like this for years, then they are faced with their biggest terror, destitution, disappearing or being detained.”

Sanitary project changes lives of refugees in Uganda

Webmaster — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:45:24 +0000

IRIN – A project using papyrus and waste paper to make sanitary pads has changed the life of Evelyne Banyamisa, who fled rebel violence in Bunia, north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2003 when she was only 13.

After leaving the DRC, Bamanyisa ended up in south-western Uganda where she has been living as a refugee. She was separated from her parents as they fled Bunia, and Banyamisa, her elder brother, a younger sister and a niece, arrived in the Kyaka II refugee camp where they lived together as a family until 2008 when her brother disappeared.

“I don’t know where he went; I have reported his disappearance but I have not so far heard anything; right now I am taking care of my sister, my niece and an orphan who I decided to take in as she did not have anyone to help her,” Banyamisa, now aged 20, told IRIN on 7 March.

Iraq IDPs return in large numbers

Webmaster — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:37:32 +0000

IRIN – The security situation in Iraq’s northeastern province of Diyala is slowly improving and thousands of displaced families have returned to their homes, according to officials.

“Despite the fact that the security situation in some parts of the province is not good, some areas where the security situation has improved are witnessing good return levels,” said Thari Mohammed, a senior official in the Ministry of Displacement and Migration in Diyala.

Mohammed said about 12,900 displaced families (roughly 77,000 individuals) had returned to their homes between late 2008 and 31 December 2009. A further 39,000 families were still displaced – 13,000 within the province and 26,000 in other provinces, Mohammed said.

Minister attends immigration debate in Wakefield

Webmaster — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:32:14 +0000

UKBA – Stakeholders in Wakefield had the opportunity to discuss immigration matters with the Minister for Borders and Immigration, Phil Woolas, at a regional ‘immigration debate’ event last week.

The minister joined Jeremy Oppenheim, the UK Border Agency’s regional director for the North East, Yorkshire and the Humber, for the question-and-answer session in Wakefield Town Hall. With them on the panel were Councillor Olivia Rowley, a Wakefield Council cabinet member and chair of the Regional Migration Partnership, and UK Border Agency deputy chief executive Jonathan Sedgwick.

Christians protest at attacks on Zimbabwe trade unionists

Webmaster — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:29:02 +0000

The World Student Christian Federation (WSCF) and its Zimbabwe Advocacy Office say they are shocked at recent attacks on trade union leaders by police and security forces in Zimbabwe during a period when the southern African country is trying to reconcile bitter divides – writes Peter Kenny.

In a statement sent to Ecumenical News International recently, the General Secretary of the student federation, the Rev Michael Wallace, and the coordinator of the Zimbabwe office in Geneva, Marlon Zakeyo, said that three days earlier, police raided and ransacked offices of the General Plantation and Agricultural Workers Union of Zimbabwe in Harare.

“These senseless attacks, together with the recent upsurge in general violence in the country, indicate clearly that Zimbabwe’s political crisis remains unresolved and that Zimbabwe’s Inclusive Government needs to do much more to deliver change,” the statement said.

The statement noted that the police forced the Secretary General of the agricultural workers’ union, Gertrude Hambira, to flee her home to South Africa, leaving her family behind.

200 Zimbabweans currently detained in UK

Webmaster — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 14:54:53 +0000

The Zimbabwe Times – The British government is holding at least 209 Zimbabweans at its immigration centres and prisons, it was announced Thursday.

The figure was announced in the House of Lords after a question had been raised on the deportation of foreign nationals and the number of them currently held in detention centres and prisons in Britain.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office Lord Alan West of Spithead said the British government had announced in a written ministerial statement on October 29 last year that authorities were looking to normalising the returns policy to Zimbabwe progressively as and when the political situation developed.

According to latest HM Prison Service figures, as at December 18, 2009, there were 209 Zimbabwean nationals in prisons including those in the immigration removal centres, Dover, Haslar and Lindholme.

The 209 included those held on remand, serving custodial sentences or held under the Immigration Act 1971.