'Unseen' News and Views – By Baher Kamal & The Like
Liberee Kayumba, a survivor of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, has seen the horrors of war first-hand. She was only 12 years old when she lost her parents and brothers in the genocide – a trauma that was further compounded by the immediate risk of starvation.
Amid the pandemic, refugees stepped up to provide healthcare, boost wellness, safeguard their communities and keep us inspired during lockdowns.
Venezuelan doctor Samuel Suárez is taking part in the public health response to coronavirus in San Francisco, a remote village in Ecuador.© UNHCR/Jaime Giménez Sánchez de la Blanca
(UN News)* — Amidst a “critical shortage” of resources, hundreds of thousands of refugees in Kenya will lack food unless new funds are swiftly received, the UN’s food relief agency warned on Thursday [17 December 2020].
(New York) – The Bangladesh government should immediately halt imminent relocations of Rohingya refugees to remote Bhasan Char island, Human Rights Watch said on 3 December 2020.
Refugees held on Bhasan Char island protesting to return to Cox’s Bazar during a 3-day “go and see visit” to the island for 40 refugees from the camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, September 5, 2020. Screenshot from a video recording. © 2020 Private7 December 2020 – The head of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), has voiced concerns over the reported relocation of some Rohingya refugees by Bangladeshi authorities, to an island off the country’s coast, in the Bay of Bengal. (*)
“Any transfer must follow a voluntary, informed decision”, Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said on Twitter on Sunday [7 December 2020].
According to media reports, about 1,600 Rohingya refugees have moved from camps in Cox’s Bazar to the Bhasan Char island in the Bay of Bengal, a low-lying island said to be vulnerable to cyclones and flooding.
(UN News)* — In a briefing to journalists on Thursday [19 November 2020], a senior UN humanitarian official in Sudan recounted moving testimony from refugees who are crossing the border from Ethiopia in their thousands, fleeing fighting in Tigray province.
“Many of the refugees left behind children, and parents. They did not have time to assemble their families and leave together”, said Babacar Cissé, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan.
“They arrived at the camps after having walked for several days, exhausted and with nothing. Seeing families and children sleeping in the open was heartbreaking”.
Many of the refugees are young men, who told UN staff that they had been targeted by armed fighters.
11 November 2020 (UN News)* — The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has called on world leaders to take bold and swift action to eradicate statelessness by 2024.
The need is all the more pressing in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, which is worsening the plight of millions of stateless people around the world, he warned.
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNWRA) has run out of cash on hand to keep vital services going amid the worsening health emergency, UNRWA spokesperson Tamara Alrifai told a regular UN press briefing in Geneva on Tuesday [10 November 2020].
Authorities Prepare to Relocate Thousands to Dangerous Island
(New York) – Bangladesh authorities beat refugees protesting their detention on Bhasan Char Island with sticks and tree branches, Human Rights Watch on 1 October 2020 said.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 