Build migration bridges, not barriers, say churches

Hundreds of churches across Britain demonstrated their solidarity with migrants and displaced people over the weekend, taking part in Racial Justice Sunday.

On 12 September 2010, the theme of the annual event was ‘Migration: Building Bridges or Barriers?’ and the focus was on the practical and biblical question ‘who is my neighbour?’

Materials for local congregations were developed by the Catholic Association for Racial Justice and Churches Together in Britain and Ireland – the official ecumenical body for Anglican, Catholic, Free Church, Orthodox and other indigenous and Black majority churches across the four nations.

Sermons, discussions and prayer and worship liturgies stressed that “all human beings long to find space to tell their story”, not least people whose economic, social or spiritual situation requires them to be on the move.

The materials used by local churches emphasised the biblical call to welcome and embrace the stranger, contrasted to the often harsh, insensitive and discriminatory practices adopted by government towards migrants.

The Roman Catholic Church across Britain has recognised that it has been particularly been effected by population flux in recent years.

Bishop Patrick Lynch, chair of the Office for Migration Policy at the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales declared last week: “The phenomenon of migration has always been part of human history. The International Organisation for Migration defines migration as ‘the movement of people either across an international border or within a State. It is a population movement, encompassing any kind of movement of people, whatever its length, composition and causes; it includes the migration of refugees, displaced persons, uprooted people and economic migrants.”

He continued: “The Church recognises that migration of people, both voluntary and involuntary “has turned into a structural reality of contemporary society” (Erga Migrantes Caritas Christi ). It is a global phenomenon, touching all regions, crossing all ecclesiastical and national boundaries and affects millions of human beings.”

“In Britain over the last few years, there has been a transformation of the social character of the dioceses in England and Wales,” said Lynch. “We sometimes call it ‘the Changing Face of Britain’. Across the country in all our dioceses but especially in our large cities, we have migrants from many parts of the world adding vibrancy to our parishes. In the ‘Mission of the Church to Migrants’ the Bishops of England and Wales have considered this new social reality and have called for a more visible culture of welcome, hospitality and solidarity with migrants.”

The Catholic leader concluded: “Racial Justice Sunday gives us the opportunity to recognise the suffering migrants have experienced through misunderstanding, exploitation, insecurity, uncertainty, injustice and poverty but also to celebrate the rich cultural and spiritual patrimony of migrants and to give visibility to the ways they are enriching us in our parishes and dioceses. It is an opportunity not to be indifferent to those around us, ‘who unsettle us and do not look or speak like us’ but to identify them as our neighbours and to reach out to the people we do not know, to migrants, to refugees and people seeking sanctuary who share the pews in our parishes.

“The Church calls us to be open minded and welcoming to migrants and refugees, to listen to their stories to celebrate the values they bring to our communities and to stand in solidarity with them,” the bishop emphasised.

Source: Ekklesia

Thousands displaced by rains and clashes

(IRIN) – Renewed militia fighting and heavy rains in Somalia’s central regions of Hiiraan and Galgadud have forced thousands of people to abandon their homes, say officials.

Locals told IRIN fresh fighting between pro-government Ahlu Sunna Waljama’a – a traditional Sufi movement – and Al-Shabab broke out in Galgadud region on 3 June and continued for two days.

“Our estimate is that about 5,000 families [30,000] have fled the towns of Dusamareb, Eil Dheer, Mareer Gur and Gadon and Bula’le and are now displaced,” Abdulkadir Mohamud, an official of a local NGO known as Towfiq, said in Dusamareb, the regional capital.

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Urgent Aid to IDP’s in Puntland

Heavy rain in north eastern Somalia have resulted in floods around in the town of Qardho leaving more than 800 internally displaced families in urgent need of aid. The Danish Refugee Council is ready to respond – providing drinking-water, shelter and emergency latrines. Read more

UNHCR starts Afghan winter aid programme

KABUL, 1 December 2009 (IRIN) – The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has begun a winter aid programme in Afghanistan for 200,000 most vulnerable people, mainly internally displaced persons and returnees from Iran and Pakistan.

The aid, worth US$3.85 million, includes non-food items such as tents, charcoal, warm clothes and jerry cans.

“Since 2007, our winterization strategy has emphasised preparedness rather than emergency response… We hope to prevent illness and hardship for the most vulnerable people,” said Ewen Macleod, UNHCR’s representative in Afghanistan.

Over 27,400 tons of food aid items have also been prepositioned in 18 of the country’s 34 provinces, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) reported

More than 70,000 displaced by violence in Equateur

Photo: ReliefWeb

More than 70,000 people have been displaced by inter-communal clashes in northwest Democratic Republic of Congo’s Equateur province, according to the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

About half of the displaced have remained inside DRC, taking temporary shelter in locations such as Kungu, Bokonzi, Bomboma and Bonzene, according to the Belgian branch of MSF, which conducted an assessment mission to the province.

The team found “people who had walked for up to four days to save their lives. At the end of their journey, these people are destitute, they have nothing. They live in the open, or in makeshift shelters, or schools or churches, or with host families. The injured cannot get treatment because it’s too expensive and they fled with nothing,” MSF said in a statement.

The rest of the displaced crossed the Ubangi river into neighbouring Republic of Congo (ROC) where many are spread along the shore of the river and can only be reached by pirogue.

These refugees number more than 44,000 according to Samba Ndalla, the field coordinator of Médecins d’Afrique, an NGO that is working with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in ROC.

“This is the figure from Sunday [29 November]. But there is another wave of refugees who have arrived in Impfondo zone and have yet to be registered,” he said.

“The situation is catastrophic… most people only have shelters to protect themselves against the rain and sun,” said Ndalla.

“The needs are enormous. While we have not yet seen an epidemic as such, there has been an increase in cases of malaria, some cases of diarrhoea, respiratory infections and dermatitis among children,” he said.

Ndalla said the latest influx was the result of an attack on the DRC village of Buburu on Saturday night.

Funds needed for displaced Zimbabweans

Photo: Tebogo Letsie/IRIN

Thousands of Zimbabweans were dispaced when xenophobic violence erupted in 2008

(IRIN) – The number of Zimbabweans displaced after some of their shacks in an informal settlement outside De Doorns, a farming town about 140km from Cape Town, South Africa, were attacked and demolished by local South African residents, has risen to about 3,000, said the South African Red Cross Society.

The Red Cross has appealed for R2 million (about US$270,880) to help provide urgently needed blankets, water, food, first-aid kits, toiletries, clothing, fuel for transport, and logistical support for the displaced.

Red Cross spokesman Kelvin Glen told IRIN that the aid agency had responded to a call for help by local authorities on 15 November to provide meals and blankets for about 80 people, “but the numbers have risen since”. Most of the displaced are being sheltered in a marquee tent pitched on the local sports ground.

More Zimbabweans fled following attacks by local residents early in the morning of 17 November. The South Africans were unhappy that local farm owners were employing Zimbabweans, according to police at De Doorns. The situation was stable at the moment, said the police.

Life getting harder for Mogadishu displaced

Photo: Mohamed Garane/IRIN

An internally displaced person in Somalia (file photo)

Heavy rain, lack of medical services, few latrines and reduced aid have worsened the plight of the growing number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) camping on the outskirts of Mogadishu, sources said.

“We have two clinics in the area covering over 30 camps, with an average population of 550 families (3,300 people) per camp,” Hussein Ali Mohamed, a doctor with the UK-based charity Islamic Relief, said.

“I am seeing more and more cases of malnutrition and water-related diseases,” he added. “There are not enough latrines and those that there are, are being used by three or four times the number of people they were designed for in 2007.”

“You have people weakened by lack of food and poor health with minimum shelter,” Mohammed told IRIN on 9 November, adding that the main problems were respiratory tract infections and diseases related to malnutrition.

“Yesterday [8 November], a two-year-old boy weighing 3.5kg was brought to the clinic… Normally he should have weighed over 10kg. Unfortunately, that is becoming more frequent than in the past.”

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates there are some 900,000 IDPs in the Mogadishu-Afgoye corridor. Virtually all of them are in camps of one sort or another.

Asli Aden, a 30-year-old mother of four, has been an IDP in the Arbiska area, 20km south of Mogadishu, since 2007. While visiting the clinic with her sick child, she told IRIN that life in the camps was becoming even more difficult.

Food aid cut

In 2007 when she first came to the camps, her family used to get 100kg of sorghum, 10kg of beans, 10kg of porridge and 3ltr of cooking oil each month from aid agencies.
“First they reduced it [sorghum or maize] to 75kgs per month, and about four months ago they cut all food aid by half so that we now get 37kg of maize or sorghum, 5kg of beans, 5kg of porridge and 1.5ltr of cooking oil,” she said. “Now, we don’t get oil or beans. I don’t know what we will do but it is getting harder and harder to feed the children.”

The plastic sheeting covering her makeshift home also had so many holes in it that it no long provided shelter from the rain. “Some nights, when it rains, we have to move to the corrugated-iron sheet latrines for shelter,” she explained.

Aid agencies in Somalia have recently said they needed more money but some donors are holding back, concerned at where resources might end up in areas too dangerous for international staff.

Many IDPs also used to go to Mogadishu to look for work and return to the camps with some earnings to supplement aid handouts. “Now because of the deteriorating security conditions many are afraid to go,” Jowahir Ilmi, head of local NGO Somali Women’s Concern, said.

AFRICA: IDP convention – now the hard work begins

Photo: Allan Gichigi/IRIN

IDPs at the Mathare Chief’s camp where they have set up camp in the open field. Kenya, July 2008 (file photo

(IRIN)-Seventeen countries signed the African Union convention on internally displaced persons (IDPs) after years of preparation culminated in a week of meetings in the Ugandan capital but a lot more hard work remains before it becomes effective, according to observers.

“The most important step now is implementation,” Julia Dolly Joiner, AU commissioner for political affairs, said. “We need to move from intentions to actions.”

For the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement,  it is crucial that implementation is carried out “in a timely fashion and in a manner that makes a real difference to the lives of persons affected by internal displacement in the region, including host communities.

“The first step forward should involve a process of national dialogue and civic education aimed at securing the Convention’s ratification and implementation by the State parties,” according to a statement by the project, which monitors displacement issues worldwide to promote best practice among governments and other actors.

Fifteen countries must ratify the convention before it enters into effect.

Organizers of the 19-23 October meetings insisted that the fact that only 17 signed did not represent a lack of political will and commitment on the part of the African states.

“We debated together and we agreed but when it comes to signing, the person has to have been given the authority by his government to sign,” one AU official told IRIN. “Only 17 had such authorization.”

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who chaired the summit, praised it as “a very important milestone [that] has gone beyond conflicts to address issues of development.

“We have at least agreed in words, we now have to put our words [into] action,” he told a news conference. “The solace for the women in Darfur may not be very immediate, but the fact is that people have come together to discuss the matter.”

The IDP convention obliges states to:
	Prohibit and prevent arbitrary population displacements, respect the principles of humanity and human dignity, as well as aspects of international humanitarian law concerning the protection of IDPs;
	Ensure assistance to IDPs, incorporate obligations under the convention into domestic law and designate a body to coordinate IDP protection and assistance;
	Devise early warning systems on potential displacement and establish disaster risk reduction strategies, protect communities and respect individual rights on protection against arbitrary displacement;
	Respect the mandates of the AU and UN, and the roles of international humanitarian organizations; and
	Take necessary action to effectively organize humanitarian relief and guarantee security; respect, protect and not attack humanitarian personnel or resources, and ensure armed groups conform with their obligations.
It prohibits armed groups from:
	Carrying out arbitrary displacement, hampering the provision of protection and assistance to IDPs and restricting the movement of IDPs;
	Forcibly recruiting, kidnapping or engaging in sexual slavery and trafficking; or
	Attacking humanitarian personnel or resources.
It obliges the AU:
	To intervene in respect of grave circumstances such as war crimes and crimes against humanity;
	To respect the right of members to request such an intervention and support efforts to support IDPs; and
	Strengthen capacity and coordinate the mobilization of resources for protection and assistance to IDPs.

Partnerships urged

Joiner called for international support. “Africa cannot do it alone; that is why we are calling for partnerships,” she told IRIN. “We are optimistic that countries will be faithful to their commitments under the convention.”

The AU will now try to get more signatures, and lobby 15 countries to ratify the convention so it can become a binding document. Observers, however, say much more work needs to be done to generate political will, given that most presidents stayed away from the summit.

The convention addresses the root causes of displacement in Africa, where at least 11 million people are displaced by conflict and climate change-related natural disasters, among other reasons.

According to the Brookings-Bern Project, three of the world’s top five countries with the largest populations of conflict-induced IDPs are in Africa.

These include Sudan, with an estimated 4.9 million IDPs, the Democratic Republic of Congo, with at least one million, and Somalia, where the UN estimates 1.5 million are displaced. Hundreds of thousands more are displaced in Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.

Overall, citizens in at least 20 African states are experiencing internal displacement.

The convention aims to promote regional and national measures to prevent, mitigate, prohibit and eliminate the root causes of internal displacement as well as provide durable solutions.

“People who flee persecution or conflict and cross into another country are categorized as refugees and, as such, benefit from a long-standing and well-oiled international legal protection system, including the 1951 Refugee Convention,” the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said.

“Until now [IDPs] have been more or less excluded from the system of international legal protection, even though they are often displaced in exactly the same way, and for exactly the same reasons, as refugees. At least in Africa, that should no longer be the case.”

African leaders to sign treaty on refugees

By Emmanuel Goujon

African leaders gathered Thursday in the Ugandan capital for a two-day summit aimed at agreeing a treaty on improving the plight of the continent’s 17-million refugees and displaced people.

The Convention on the Protection and Assistance of the Displaced People in Africa is the first of its kind aimed at internally displaced people, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

“The summit is aimed at pursuing durable solutions to the root causes and challenges of Africa’s 17-million IDPs and refugees,” Ugandan Minister for Refugees Tarsis Kabwegyere said ahead of the meeting.

Political upheaval, conflicts and natural disasters have left Africa with the world’s highest number of refugees and displaced.

“Internal displacement is one of the most daunting humanitarian challenges of our day, and no one would deny that Africa is the hardest-hit continent in terms of numbers of IDPs,” ICRC chief Jakob Kellenberger said in a statement.

Somalia’s long-running conflict, instability in DR Congo’s eastern region and recent political violence in Kenya as well as other hotspots such as northern Uganda and south Sudan have caused massive population displacements.

Around a third of Somalia’s 10-million people are in need of relief aid due to a prolonged drought that has plunged the Horn of Africa country into its worst humanitarian crisis in 18 years.

Close to a sixth of the population is displaced.

Even as the summit got under way, at least 17 civilians died in an exchange of mortar and artillery fire in Mogadishu, the latest in a string of such incidents that have sent tens of thousands fleeing the city in recent months.

African Union political affairs commissioner Julia Dolly Joiner called for political and economic stability for the continent’s trouble spots.

“Improvements in governance, rapid economic development and more appropriate food security strategies are among the actions that will ensure that the root causes are addressed,” she said.

On Wednesday, the AU executive council adopted the draft convention which calls for the prevention of forced displacement, protection of refugees and the internally displaced and helping victims of conflicts and natural disasters.

Under the convention, the draft of which was seen by AFP, countries will be required to provide special assistance for IDPs with special needs, including the elderly.

Leaders at the Kampala summit will also set up an action plan to implement the resolution which emerges from the meeting.

Last year, the 53-member bloc resolved to bolster the protection of refugees and displaced people, a move that was lauded by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees as historic.

“But some African countries are reluctant to ratify the convention which would be restrictive and have legal consequences,” an African diplomat told AFP. – Sapa-AFP

Humanitarian crisis now unfolding

Photo: ReliefWeb

Map of Angola

(IRIN) – A burgeoning humanitarian crisis among the tens of thousands of people expelled by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to neighbouring Angola is beginning to unfold.

“The fears of a humanitarian emergency and the needs of the people have been confirmed,” said the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) representative, Bohdan Nahajlo, after an assessment visit to the affected region in northern Angola.

The most urgent needs of the expelled are shelter, food, medicine and sanitation facilities.

Tit-for-tat expulsions since August 2009 by the governments of Angola and DRC have led to more than 32,000 Angolans being repatriated to Angola, and about 18,800 Congolese nationals being deported from Angola. Following talks on 13 October in the DRC capital, Kinshasa, both countries agreed to “immediately stop the expulsions of citizens of their respective states”.

Nahajlo told IRIN that providing humanitarian assistance to the displaced was becoming a race against time, as the rainy season was closing in and would make the roads from the Angolan capital, Luanda, impassable, and the M’banza Congo airport in Angola’s northern province of Zaire was not an option because it was closed for renovation.

“Sanitation [in the reception centres] is very bad,” he said. Around 17,500 expelled Angolans were in the Mama Rosa settlement in the border-crossing town of Luvo.

Three settlements close to the town of Cuimba, near the DRC border in Zaire, were also hosting displaced people: there were about 5,000 in Lendi, about 2,500 in Casileha, and around 2,600 in Buela.

In Lendi more than 5,000 refugees had hastily erected very basic shelters. “Water is being given directly to the population in buckets – there are reports of people ill with diarrhoea and vomiting,” Nahajlo said.

However, the exact number of people displaced to Angola is unclear, as people may have fled to Cabinda, the oil-rich Angolan province surrounded by DRC, or other areas bordering DRC, he told IRIN.

A recent UNHCR assessment of Angolan refugees in the DRC found that about 43,000 were willing to be repatriated voluntarily, but “in this atmosphere people will be encouraged to return,” and the refugee agency was expecting a second wave of about 50,000 people, Nahajlo said.

“Besides addressing the immediate humanitarian and protection needs, we should also prepare for a continuous flow of Angolans into the country,” who were crossing the border out of fear, and the hope of being reunited with their families in Angola, he warned.

The speed of the expulsions meant that some people had been driven from their places of work without being able to inform their families, people in mixed nationality marriages had been forbidden to accompany their spouses to Angola, and families had been split, with children divided among their parents.

“I met a man who told me he was given 24 hours to leave, but he could not reach his wife, who had travelled to another town to visit her sick mother. He ended up leaving the family behind,” Yolanda Ditewig, a UNHCR Protection Officer who was part of the assessment team, told IRIN.

The Angolan government has estimated that about 10,000 tents, of which UNHCR is expected to provide about half, would be required to provide shelter for the expelled Angolans.

During Angola’s almost three decades of civil war, which ended in 2002, the DRC hosted more than 100,000 Angolan refugees; since then, thousands of undocumented Congolese migrants – mostly thought to be illegal diamond diggers – have been working in Angola.

The ebb and flow of people expelled from both sides of the border has become a common spat between the neighbours. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) there have been six major waves of expulsions since 2003, in which a total of 140,000 Congolese were deported from Angola.

Back in the DRC

“There are no sites to host the expelled people [from Angola],” said Willy Iloma, who chairs a human rights organisation and coordinates NGOs in Muanda territory on the Angolan border, in the extreme west of the DRC’s Bas-Congo Province. “They are now scattered in churches and among host families; some have gone to Kinshasa [capital of DRC] and other towns.”According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, there are two groups in Muanda and Tshela territories: “forced voluntary expulsees who left following threats, and those who were physically deported to the border. Most of them are small-businesspeople, as well as women and children. Although these expulsees have humanitarian needs, the situation is now under control and aid is not currently required [in DRC].”

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