Category: Events

A practice increasingly employed throughout the world

Rome, 7 December 2011 – In its latest report, Safe and Secure: How do Refugees Experience Europe’s Borders?, JRS finds ample evidence that European governments actively hinder refugee arrivals. JRS field offices confirm these deplorable practices are not limited to Europe; they are rapidly becoming the norm throughout Asia and Africa.

As the world commemorates the anniversary on 10 December of this poignant document, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Jesuit Refugee Service urges states to:

• respond swiftly to all migrants and refugees in distress at sea and offer all those apprehended, including at land borders, access to procedures to determine whether they are in need of international protection; and
• end the practice of forcibly removing migrants to third countries where their human rights cannot be effectively protected.

“Never before the Mediterranean Sea has been as closely monitored as this year because of the war in Libya and still more boat people than ever perished or disappeared”

Matthew Vella

NATO officials have reportedly agreed to provide additional information into the deaths of asylum seekers in the Mediterranean, as part of an investigation by Dutch MP Tineke Strike for the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly committee on migration.

The additional information may include satellite imagery.

Hundreds of Refugees Held Hostage in Sinai Torture Camps Need Rescuing

Agenzia Habeshia – Italy, Release Eritrea – United Kingdom , International Commission on Eritrean Refugees (ICER) – United States, Eritrean Movement for Democracy and Human Rights (EMDHR) – Sweden, The America Team for Displaced Eritreans – United States, Physicians for Human Rights – Israel, Hotline for Migrant Workers – Israel

Claims that a large number of refugees have been released from Sinai camps following media reports represents only a partial picture of the current situation on the ground. Human rights organizations worldwide have come together to publish up-to-date information in their possession which shows that the smuggling networks are still up and running and that hundreds of refugee hostages are being tortured by human traffickers in the Sinai.

For more than 18 months, the chilling evidence of horrors inflicted by human traffickers on refugees as they are on their way to Israel through the Sinai desert has been published and broadcast in Israel and throughout the world. During the past year, the organizations signed on this document have provided detailed information, systematically collected, regarding smuggling networks operating in the Sinai and beyond (Israel, Ethiopia, and Sudan) to influential bodies in the international arena including diplomats, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), Amnesty International and the Israeli authorities. Despite these numerous appeals, and the concrete nature of the information that was transferred, the detention camps, the extortion, and the torture continue.

Egypt: Don’t Deport Eritreans

(Geneva) – The Egyptian authorities are preparing to deport 118 detained Eritreans to Eritrea, where they risk persecution, Human Rights Watch said today. On October 29, 2011, guards at the al-Shalal prison in Aswan beat the 118 men, including 40 who already have refugee status, to force them to sign papers for their “voluntary” return to Eritrea, according to sources with access to the detainees. Egypt should stop forcing detained Eritreans to sign repatriation forms and allow the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to interview all detained Eritreans to identify refugees among them, Human Rights Watch said. According to UNHCR, it has already registered 40 of the group as refugees in Sudan and Ethiopia. The renewed deportations signal a return to Egypt’s mass deportations of Eritreans in 2008and 2009, Human Rights Watch said.

Oromia-Somaliland: The Frustrating Situation of Refugees in Somaliland

November 13, 2011 at 3:07 pm · Gadaa.com The following statement is the Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa (HRLHA).

HRLHA Appeal and Urgent Action

Your Excellency, Mr. Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud,
President of the Republic of Somaliland.

Dear Honorable President,

First of all, the Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa (HRLHA) would like to express its appreciation to the people of the Republic of Somaliland, and to its government for their hospitality and kindness towards thousands of refugees who have fled their homes to escaped government persecutions in Ethiopia, Eritrea and other neighboring countries, and now living in Somaliland.

However, what has been happening to refugees in Somaliland over the past two and three weeks is contrary to the expectations of the HRLHA and those of international communities.

According to information obtained by HRLHA through its correspondents in Hargeisa, Somaliland, the refugees in the country, most of whom are from Ethiopia, have been subjected to different kinds of harassment and intimidation in a very unsafe situation. According those reports, the refugees have been (and are being) indiscriminately evicted from their rented temporary shelters; and, as a result, more than 700 refugees have been forced to live on the streets. They are temporarily gathered at a place known as the Social Welfare Centre near the UNHCR office in Hargeisa. At this place, only those who could afford to buy, are using tents while those, who could not, are living in open air. Confiscations of properties, documents in particular, take place along with kidnappings at their temporary shelters on the streets.

Civil War Threatening the Sudans, Warn Bishops

Conflict Worsening at New Border Region

KHARTOUM, Sudan, NOV. 7, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Violence is spreading in Sudan and the newly formed South Sudan, such that a civil war is threatening if the international community doesn’t intervene, according to the countries’ bishops.