By Kristy Siegfried | 5 March, 2019

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

UK urged to double refugee resettlement. A report released today by the cross-party international development committee (IDC) has urged the UK government to double the number of vulnerable refugees offered resettlement and to review policies that restrict asylum-seekers’ right to work. The report urges the government to “lead by example” by resettling and employing refugees, particularly those from sub-Saharan Africa. “We should not be asking nations to house and employ refugees when the numbers we take in are so small, and the employment freedoms limited,” said Stephen Twigg, chairman of the IDC. The committee is echoing UNHCR’s call for the UK to resettle at least 10,000 refugees a year, with a quarter of those spaces reserved for sub-Saharan Africans. Britain resettled 5,756 refugees in 2017/18, of which about 450 were from sub-Saharan Africa.

Second asylum-seeker death in six weeks at Australian detention centre. A man, believed to be an Iraqi asylum-seeker, took his own life at the Villawood Immigration Detention Centre in Sydney late on Monday, refugee advocate Ian Rintoul told AFP. Australian immigration officials confirmed his death but did not release further details, saying only that the matter was under investigation. The death comes six weeks after another male detainee, reportedly from Sierra Leone, died at Villawood. Rintoul said he was also an asylum-seeker and was believed to have committed suicide. Human rights groups and UNHCR have warned about self-half and mental health issues at Australia’s onshore and offshore immigration detention centres. UNHCR has called for the evacuation of all asylum-seekers and refugees from offshore processing facilities.

WHAT’S ON OUR RADAR

UN allocates emergency funding to respond to crisis in Burkina Faso. The UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) has allocated US$4 million to boost the humanitarian response in Burkina Faso, following a surge in attacks and intercommunal violence that has uprooted almost 70,000 people from their homes in the past two months alone. In total, over 100,000 people have been displaced, mainly from Est, Nord, Centre-Nord and Sahel regions. Armed attacks have also forced the closure of more than 1,100 schools. The government and humanitarian groups launched a $100 million aid plan last month.

Months after massacre in DR Congo, little aid but plenty of fear. IRIN reports on the situation of 30,000 people who fled the town of Yumbi and nearby areas in western Democratic Republic of the Congo two months ago, during a massacre that left at least 535 people dead. Some 12,000 people, many of whom took refuge on river islands, remain displaced and afraid to return home despite the lack of food, shelter and health services on the islands and the coming rainy season which could bring flooding and the risk of disease. Another 16,000 of the displaced are living as refugees in neighbouring Congo-Brazzaville.

Displaced, rural Afghans desperate for peace deal. The New York Times reports on the plight of the rural Afghans most affected by 18 years of conflict and under-represented in discussions about current peace negotiations with the Taliban. According to the Times, rural Afghans – including more than a million displaced by fighting, often multiple times – are desperate for any peace deal that would allow aid to reach them. Aid distribution to displaced people has decreased in recent years and there are also fears that a peace deal could see more donor countries “rushing for the exits” even as the country faces a humanitarian crisis exacerbated by a harsh drought.

GET INSPIRED

This short film by 17-year-old Syrian refugee, Donia, offers a window into daily life at Azraq Refugee Camp in Jordan. Donia and her family have done their best to turn their shelter into a home, but Donia longs to return to her country.

DID YOU KNOW?

Typically, less than one per cent of the nearly 20 million refugees worldwide who are under UNHCR’s mandate are ever resettled.

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