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Hello Jammu News at 1:11:00 PM 0

United Nations, Aug 10: The decision of the Thailand government to grant citizenship to three of the boys recently rescued after being trapped in a flooded cave, along with their football coach, has been welcomed by United Nations refugee agency, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Following global media coverage of the rescue, it emerged that although the three boys and with their coach were residents in Thailand, they were officially Stateless.

Almost half a million people in the country, often from nomadic hill tribes and other ethnic groups that have been based in border regions for centuries, do not hold Thai citizenship.

Granting the "Wild Boars" team members secure status should make a significant difference to the prospects of the boys and their coach, according to Carol Batchelor, UNHCR's Special Advisor on Statelessness.

"By granting them citizenship, Thailand has provided them with a formal identity that will pave the way for them to achieve their aspirations and to participate as full members of society," Carol said.

Worldwide, several million people are Stateless, and can find themselves denied access to basic rights and services. Other restrictions include being refused the right to travel, marry, own property, or work.

Thailand has been hailed by the UNHCR as a leader in regional efforts to end Statelessness. In the last decade, 100,000 people have been granted Thai citizenship, and the government has committed to finding nationality solutions for all those living within its borders, by 2024.

Referring to the Thai rescuees, Batchelor referred to the Government's actions as "a shining example of how positive action by a State, can aid people and quickly resolve their stateless situation."

"We welcome this effort by Thailand and urge all States hosting stateless populations to help eradicate this entirely avoidable blight on humanity.

The UNHCR says it will continue to support the Thai Government and stateless communities in Thailand to reach the country's ambitious 2024 target. (PTI)
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Hello Jammu News at 1:51:00 PM 0

UNITED NATIONS, May 10: The United Nations Security Council urged Myanmar’s government on Wednesday to carry out transparent investigations into accusations of violence against mainly Rohingya Muslims in the country’s Rakhine state and to allow immediate aid access to the region.
Despite initial resistance by China to the Security Council pressing Myanmar on accountability, the 15-member body reached consensus agreement on the British-drafted statement.
The move follows a visit by Council envoys to Bangladesh and Myanmar last week to see firsthand the aftermath of a Myanmar military crackdown that Britain, the United States and others have denounced as ethnic cleansing of the minority Rohingya. Myanmar denies ethnic cleansing.
Fleeing refugees have reported killings, rapes and arson on a large scale. Myanmar has said its operations in Rakhine were a legitimate response to attacks on security forces by Rohingya insurgents.
“The members of the Security Council in light of the importance of undertaking transparent investigations into allegations of human rights abuses and violations, urge the government of Myanmar to fulfill, based on respect for the rule of law, its stated commitment to holding accountable perpetrators of violence, including sexual violence and abuse and violence against children,” the council statement said.
Rohingya insurgent attacks on security posts in Rakhine in August last year sparked a military operation that has sent nearly 700,000 Rohingya fleeing to refugee camps in Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh. Security Council envoys visited those vast camps last week.
The statement said they “were struck by the scale of the humanitarian crisis and remain gravely concerned by the current situation.” They also noted the “widespread destruction of villages” in Rakhine.
They also met with Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and traveled to Rakhine state, where the violence erupted.
The council urged Myanmar to conclude an agreement “in the coming days” with the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR and U.N. Development Programme on aid access in Rakhine and help with repatriating refugees from Bangladesh.
The Security Council also said it intends to discuss how it can work with Bangladesh, Myanmar and the United Nations “to resolve the crisis and create the conditions allowing the safe, voluntary, and dignified repatriation of refugees to their homes in Rakhine State.”
The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has asked the court to rule on whether it has jurisdiction over the deportations of Rohingyas to Bangladesh, a possible crime against humanity.
Suu Kyi's government has expressed "serious concern" over the move at the ICC. Bangladesh is a member of the ICC but Myanmar is not. Human rights groups have called on the U.N. Security Council to adopt a resolution referring the situation in Myanmar to the court. REUTERS
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Hello Jammu News at 3:44:00 PM 0



Dhaka, Mar 3: UNHCR has joined up with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Bangladesh to reduce accidents involving elephants coming into conflict with displaced persons in the world’s largest refugee settlement. 
Since the Rohingya refugee influx into Bangladesh started over six months ago, there have been at least 10 deaths resulting from human-elephant conflicts in the main Kutupalong-Balukhali refugee settlement, including one casualty in the past week involving a 12-year-old boy.
The highly congested site, which houses around 560,000 refugees who fled Myanmar, used to be forest land but is now crowded with tens of thousands of shelters and services.The site lies along one of Asian elephants’ main migratory routes between Myanmar and Bangladesh. Asian elephants, a critically endangered species, are thought to number just 268 in Bangladesh. 
“Behaviourally, elephants always follow their traditional routes and corridors for regular movement. If they find any obstacles within it, they try to break it,” said IUCN in the survey report carried out to assess the scale of the problem. The survey, which covered a hilly area of 70 square km, revealed frequent elephant movement around the refugee settlement area, with the highest concentration of movements along the west boundary. 
It estimated that as many as 45 elephants could currently be active around the site. The report said the refugees and some host communities living nearby were highly exposed to future conflicts, since elephants could enter from a number of open points. 
The study also warned there could be spike in the numbers of elephants appearing in the coming days as elephants, often travelling in groups, are forced to forage for food and water during the dry season.
The project will work with both the local host community and the refugees, in close consultation with the Bangladesh Forest Department and the Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner’s Office. 
Immediate mitigation measures, include installation of watch-towers in key spots around the refugee settlement and formation of Elephant Response Teams, each comprised of 10 refugee volunteers who will be trained to help guard the site. 
Elephant routes and corridors will be clearly marked, so that people will know which areas to avoid. 
Awareness campaigns will also be carried out to create better awareness of the risks. 
The IUCN is consulting with elephant experts to look at creating an elephant corridor, so the animals can travel safely on their migratory routes and avoid encounters with people living nearby. 
'This partnership is critical not only to ensure the conservation of elephants, but to protect refugees, a number of whom have tragically already lost their lives,' said Kevin Allen, the UN refugee agency's head of emergency operations in Cox’s Bazar.
'We have already begun to set up the Elephant Response Teams as we fear there will be more attacks before as well as during the monsoon season,' said Raquibul Amin, Country Representative for IUCN Bangladesh.
'The immediate measures we plan to take, however, are only a band-aid on a much wider environmental problem.' 
The project is part of a programme by UNHCR and IUCN, working closely with the government authorities, aimed at mitigating some of the environmental impacts linked to the establishment of refugee settlements in Cox’s Bazar. 
Other plans include environmental education and awareness among refugee and the host communities on the importance of forest resources as well as steps to improve the environment in the settlement area and nearby surroundings. 
Advocacy will be conducted for reforestation programme, to ensure that natural resources and a shared environment are better protected.
This is UNHCR Bangladesh’s first-ever partnership with IUCN. 
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is the world’s largest international conservation agency and the leading global authority on the status. UNI
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Hello Jammu News at 1:30:00 PM 0


United Nations, Nov 21: Marking World Children’s Day, actress Kristin Davis has called for global attention and funding to provide more life-saving aid for Rohingya refugee children in Bangladesh, as part of her advocacy work for the United Nations refugee agency. 
“For me, the most shocking part of the Rohingya refugee crisis is the number of children who have had to flee their homes,” Ms Davis, Goodwill Ambassador for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said at the end of her visit to Kutupalong Refugee camp in Bangladesh on Monday. “Over half of the refugees in the camp are children. Some of them have lost one or both parents and they are on their own,” she added. She said that they need everything, including the very basics of shelter, water and food. “I can’t imagine going through what these children and their families have gone through, much less having the strength, resilience and extraordinary bravery these children possess,” she said. According to UNHCR, the Rohingya are a stateless minority in Myanmar. Since violence erupted on 25 August 2017 in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state, more than 600,000 people have fled to Bangladesh. Children make up 54 per cent of the total population. A recent survey of more than 170,000 families, or 740,000 individuals found that 5,677, or 3.3 per cent, of the households are headed by children; more than 4,800 households, or 2.8 per cent, include separated and unaccompanied children; and as many as 14 per cent of families are composed of single mothers holding their families together with little support in harsh camp conditions. “This is currently the fastest growing refugee crisis in the world and seeing the impact of this emergency on children is devastating,” Ms Davis continued. UNHCR requires $83.7 million to respond to humanitarian needs in Bangladesh until the end of February 2018 in order to meet the acute needs of children, women and men fleeing conflict. UNHCR’s response is currently less than half funded.
“The fact is that more funding, more donations, will save lives. Governments, the public, private sector, businesses, we all need to do what we can to help and donate now to support the Rohingya refugees,” Mr. Davis added. UNI
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Hello Jammu News at 2:34:00 PM 0

Bonn, Nov 9: As the number of people displaced worldwide due to climate change-related events continues to grow, the United Nations and its partners are focusing on regional approaches, framed by existing practice, to respond to the issue of ‘climate refugees.’
The number of disaster displacements on annual average between 2008 and 2016 amounted to 25.3 million, according to figures released by the Norwegian Refugee Council. The five countries globally that have the highest proportion of their population affected by displacements are all island States: Cuba, Fiji, Philippines, Tonga and Sri Lanka. “During this hurricane season alone for example, we saw the displacement of 1.7 million people in Cuba – that’s the equivalent of 15 per cent of its population,” said Camila Minerva, Humanitarian Programme Manager with Oxfam in the Dominican Republic, during a press conference on ‘human mobility and climate change’ at the UN Climate Conference (COP23), in Bonn, Germany, The UN News said. “The poorest and the most marginalised are five times more likely to be displaced and to remain so for longer time than people in higher income countries, and [this number] is increasing with climate change,” she added. Mariam Traore, Migration, Environment and Climate Change Specialist with the UN International Organisaton for Migration (IOM), said that it is also important to remember that the slow onset effect of climate change makes people move and migrate, sometimes in a forced way. “In a country like Bangladesh, we did a survey last year and 40 per cent of the households we interviewed told us that climate change contributed directly to their decision to migrate,” she explained. In this context, some have suggested the creation of a 'climate refugee' status, protecting those forced to leave their country because of the impacts of climate change. “The legals status for refugees is provided by the 1951 Refugee Convention, which is very clear on what [basis such status is conferred], which is basically persecution,” said Marine Franck, Programme Officer (climate change), Division of International Protection, in the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). “In the context of climate change displacement, there might be cases where there is persecution involved where this refugee status could apply but in most cases, it doesn’t,” she added. She recalled that in 2011, States had suggested that UNHCR create a new status of refugee for people displaced because of climate change. “But some States were not at all ready for that,” she stated. Ms Franck stressed that this issue of broadening the scope of refugee protection “is not necessarily desirable, because there is a risk of undermining the refugees fleeing persecution and violent conflict.” Moreover, she explained: “We would need also to renegotiate the Convention and there is no appetite for that from States and it might not be the most effective protection tool.” UNHCR thinks it is better to look at what exists at the regional level and try to have a bottom-up approach with broadening at the regional level using practices that are effective. She mentioned humanitarian protection visas, temporary protection and stay arrangements, as well as migration laws that can provide real protection. “It is much more effective because States are going to look at what their neighbours are doing and may adopt the same kind of procedures, rather than if we adopt a global convention or a new category […] it might not be easy to negotiate and it is not also sure that States will then implement it properly,” Ms Franck said. UNI
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Hello Jammu News at 1:08:00 PM 0

Geneva, Nov 8: The innovative data collection technology employed by the United Nations refugee agency for the first stage of Rohingya family counting in Bangladesh has revealed a worrying statistic: one-third of the refugee population is vulnerable.
“In an innovative and revealing family counting exercise, UNHCR [the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees] teams found that one-third of the families are vulnerable,” Duniya Aslam Khan, UNHCR spokesperson told reporters at the regular press briefing in Geneva. Ms Khan said that “14 per cent are single mothers holding their families together with little support in harsh camp conditions. Others are struggling with serious health problems or disabilities.” There is also a high proportion of elderly people at risk, unaccompanied and separated children – some of them taking care of younger siblings. Children and women have made up more than half of the total population. The individual biometric registration exercise, conducted by UNHCR and Bangladesh’s Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commission (RRRC), took place in the Kutupalong camp, makeshift and extension areas and Balukhali makeshift areas and is now extending to further south. More than 100 UNHCR-hired enumerators have so far gathered data on 120,284 families comprising 517,643 refugees. This emergency registration was made successful thanks to the new data collecting technology. The geo-tagged data collection device was designed to use GPS even without network coverage, making data consolidation and analysis more efficient. The barcoded RRRC Family Counting Card has also given a shape to Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh in terms of demography and location. “Because the refugees are still on the move and site zoning is still in progress, the enumerators visit their shelters individually, meaning that refugees do not have to queue to be counted,” Ms. Khan explained. UNI
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