'Unseen' News and Views
Refugees who escaped war in Sudan’s Darfur region and were abused in Libya have found safety at a reception centre in Agadez, Niger. © UNHCR/Jehad Nga
They are refugees, asylum seekers and persons of concern for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. They wait now here, in Agadez, Niger. Most are Sudanese, and many have appalling stories to tell.
20 June 2018 — TRANSCEND Media Service — Friday 8 June 2018 in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province, Hazara girls joined young Pashto boys to sing Afghanistan’s national anthem as a welcome to Pashto men walking 400 miles from Helmand to Kabul. The walkers are calling on warring parties in Afghanistan to end the war.
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Most of the men making the journey are wearing sandals. At rest stops, they must tend to their torn and blistered feet. But their mission grows stronger as they walk.
In Ghazni, hundreds of residents, along with religious leaders, showed remarkable readiness to embrace the courage and vision of the Helmand-to-Kabul peace walk participants.
20 June 2018 – TRANSCEND Media Service — China and India have had a long and enduring relationship for centuries. The interaction between the two was both economic and spiritual in nature through the spirit of Buddhism. More recently the relationship has taken a political and military colour. This has occurred especially after the 1962 attack by China on India and the relationship has become sour due to military, economic and political factors.
To prevent the worst consequences of climate change, we need to act now.
Photo from UN Environment.
22 June 2018 (UN Environment)* — There is a “catastrophic climate gap” between the commitments that countries have made under the Paris Climate Agreementand the emissions reductions required to avoid the worst consequences of global warming, according to UN Environment’s Emissions Gap Report 2017.
Yemen is the largest humanitarian crisis in the world.
UNICEF/UN0216979/Ayyashi
22 June 2018 (UNICEF)* — More than 22 million Yemenis – that’s three-quarters of the population – need humanitarian assistance and protection. More than 11 million of them are children. The conflict has made Yemen a living hell for its children.
The attack on the Red Sea port city Hodeidah endangers the lives of hundreds of thousands of children in the city.
Geneva, 22 June 2018 (IOM)* – IOM, the UN Migration Agency, reports that 40,944 migrants and refugees entered Europe by sea through the first 171 days of 2018. That total compares to 84,675 at this time last year, and over 215,997 at this time in 2016.
In other words: Mediterranean arrivals at this point in 2018 are running at significantly below half of last year’s total to date, and some 19 per cent of 2016’s volume at this same point during that year.
Deaths, too, are much lower than at comparable periods of the past two years. In 2017 IOM’s Missing Migrants Project reported 2,133 deaths through 21 June; at this point in 2016 the figure was 2,911 – or over three times 2018’s estimated total of 960.
Sana’a, 22 June 2018 (IOM)* – Due to the ongoing offensive, IOM, the UN Migration Agency, has been forced to postpone its voluntary humanitarian return assistance to migrants stranded in Hudaydah until further notice.
Migrants stranded in Hudaydah are forced to wait for the resumption of IOM’s return assistance. Photo: IOM
The same military operations have, so far, caused 5,775 Yemenis to flee their homes in the Hudaydah area since it began last Wednesday (13/06) – this figure is set to increase over the coming days.
23 June 2018 (UN)* — Although accurate information is limited, it has been estimated that there are some 258 million widows around the world, with over 115 million of them living in deep poverty. Data on women’s status are often not disaggregated by marital status, so at every level of gender statistics, from national to global, widows are not visible.
Hawa, 23, was pregnant when her husband was killed in the fighting in CAR. The rest of her family either died or disappeared. She fled and crossed into Cameroon. “When I arrived I didn’t have anyone,” she said. She received counseling and livelihood training from UN Women at the Safe Centre in the camp. “They sensitized and trained me on how to do a business plan at the camp.” Photo: UN Women/Ryan Brown.
Yet we know that many elderly widows face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, based on their gender, age, rural location or disability. Others are still young when they lose their husbands, perhaps as a result of conflict or because they were married as children to a much older man.
Hungarian legislation that criminalizes anyone who supports asylum seekers and other vulnerable individuals is “blatantly xenophobic”, “shameful” and “disgraceful”, the UN human rights chief on 21 June 2018 said.
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Commenting on the Hungarian Parliament’s decision to vote in Government proposals on 20 June 2018, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein described it as “an attack on fundamental human rights and freedoms”, as it “makes illegal the act of helping those who may be in dire need”.
The loss of a spouse or partner is often devastating, but for many women it is magnified by a “long-term struggle” for basic needs, human rights and dignity, according to UN Women, in a message to mark International Widows’ Day, on 23 June 2018.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 