Analysis: Catch-22 for Syrian migrants in Lebanon

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDnbXZAINPWdiyJ54dLc2BGblplXd4JmtDNqp-huWunIDaasF4Goso-jDGfMVV6Wih8W03rRHd1DpvKT1jdC3_8TsRW-vPMNXbZdXPe0edxwkPFwNkJBTy95oqGDGOpaDOW9_09_lbGXk/s1600/200812175.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDnbXZAINPWdiyJ54dLc2BGblplXd4JmtDNqp-huWunIDaasF4Goso-jDGfMVV6Wih8W03rRHd1DpvKT1jdC3_8TsRW-vPMNXbZdXPe0edxwkPFwNkJBTy95oqGDGOpaDOW9_09_lbGXk/s640/200812175.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"> <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 10pt;">Photo: <a href="http://www.irinnews.org/photo.aspx"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;">Hugh Macleod/IRIN</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div> <div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"> <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 10pt;">Syrian migrants in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region> have been<o:p></o:p></span></div> <div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"> <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 10pt;">associated with the atrocities committed<o:p></o:p></span></div> <div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"> <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 10pt;">by Syrian troops during their 29-year<o:p></o:p></span></div> <div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"> <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 10pt;">occupation of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region><o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> </td></tr> </tbody></table> <br /> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <st1:city w:st="on"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">BEIRUT</span></st1:city><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"> (IRIN) - Syrians in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region> are increasingly coming under attack as lingering anti-Syrian sentiment intensifies amid the current conflict next door. <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The Syrian imbroglio has polarized various sects and factions in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>. While Sunni Lebanese in the north have welcomed tens of thousands of Syrian refugees in the last year and a half, Lebanese of other sects and in other parts of the county are less welcoming. <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">On the streets of <st1:city w:st="on">Beirut</st1:city>’s Christian neighbourhood of Geitawi, a stronghold of the Lebanese Christian right, their intolerance of Syrian migrants, who have worked in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region> for years, is palpable: <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">“Syrians ruled us for 30 years, how can we like them?” protested Kamal Sa’ad, 48. “God willing, the war will kill them all. They’re an Arab people; we [Lebanese Christians] are Europeans.” <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Residents of the neighbourhood have gathered around 60 signatures demanding the governor of <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Beirut</st1:place></st1:city> take “the necessary security and legal measures” against Syrian workers who are perceived to pose a threat. <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">“We are sending this letter to warn the authorities that if they don’t intervene, we will organize ourselves and solve the situation through violence,” warned Cesar, a local butcher who preferred not to divulge his second name. <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">“Drunken Syrian workers are always around harassing women at night,” said Charbal Issa, 29. “You know what we will do? [Impose] a 6pm curfew for Syrians, so that they work and sleep - nothing else.” <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Military raids and mob violence <o:p></o:p></span></b></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The estimated 300,000 Syrian seasonal workers in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:country-region> before the Syrian uprising began in March 2011 were often the object of anti-Syrian sentiment - a legacy of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Syria</st1:country-region>’s 29-year occupation of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region>, starting in the 1970s. <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">“Following the Syrian withdrawal from <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region> [in 2005], each bombing blamed on the Syrian regime was followed by the beating of some Syrian workers,” said Yara Chehayed, a member of the Beirut-based Anti-Racism Movement. <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">But since the conflict in neighbouring Syria, when Syrians started fleeing to Lebanon in large numbers, fears that the Syrian opposition will use Lebanon as a base for its own struggle - the way Palestinians did in the lead-up to the Lebanese civil war - have intensified pre-existing xenophobia. Military raids are now increasingly replacing the usual mob violence. <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">On 7 October, the Lebanese Army raided the apartments of around 70 Syrian, Egyptian and Sudanese workers living in Geitawi and another Christian neighbourhood in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Beirut</st1:place></st1:city>, Mar Mikhael, late at night. One week earlier, on 1 October, soldiers stormed a construction site where migrants worked and slept in the adjacent Ashrafieyeh neighbourhood, according to residents who told Human Rights Watch (HRW) they “heard screams from the building”. Several `mukhtars’, administrators of the neighbourhood, reportedly issued a statement encouraging more such raids. <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">On 17 October, in the coastal neighbourhood of Ramlet al-Baydah, a mob of more than 20 Lebanese men attacked Syrian workers with knives and sticks, injuring 10 people. <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Targeting Syrian Sunni dissidents? <o:p></o:p></span></b></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The military defended its operation in Geitawi, claiming it was responding to increased complaints about sexual harassment and crimes committed by foreign workers. Lebanese residents in the area blame Syrian workers for thefts, sexual harassment, fights and even murders. <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">God willing, the war will kill them all. They’re an Arab people; we Lebanese Christians are EuropeansBut according to HRW, the evidence against them is scarce and the military operation looked more like collective punishment than proper policing. <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">“No clear investigation has been carried out. Why didn’t the army look for specific suspects?” said Beirut-based Nadim Houry, deputy director of the Middle Eastern division of HRW. “We advocate the rule of law and police enforcement, not this kind of mob violence.” <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The army also argued it was checking work permits, but Syrians are allowed to work in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region> without papers, as per a longstanding unwritten agreement. <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Ahmad*, a Syrian tailor in his thirties, who arrived from <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Hama</st1:place></st1:city> several years ago, said not a single Syrian was arrested on specific charges. Instead, he said, soldiers beat the Syrians, including minors, for nearly five hours, using electric shock batons until 2am. “They didn’t allow us to talk and started beating us straight away,” he said. He still bears the scars of the beating, a large haematoma covering half of his back. <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Sectarian motives? <o:p></o:p></span></b></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Syrians say they believe they were victims of a factional and sectarian army. <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">“While they were beating us, they asked us: ‘Don’t you know these punishments from the time you served in the Syrian army? Or are you with the [rebel] Free Syrian Army?’” said Ahmad. “They even checked our names to single out the Sunnis and, judging from their dialect, we suspect they were Alawis from Jebel Mohsen,” he said, referring to a neighbourhood in the northern Lebanese city of <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Tripoli</st1:place></st1:city> inhabited by people of the same sect as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">“The Lebanese military [intelligence] leadership is controlled by Christians and Shias and both sects are worried by the growing presence of the Syrian Sunni opposition in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:country-region>,” explained Khaled*, a Syrian activist from <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Hama</st1:place></st1:city>, who arrived at the building just after the 7 October raid to check on friends. “The operation was a message to Syrians: ‘Don’t think you’re protected; we know where you are’.” <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Ahmad said the army took notes about where the migrants worked and for whom. “The army came with the intention of recording our names and checking if there was someone wanted in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Syria</st1:place></st1:country-region>,” he suggested. <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">“Politics are always behind these aggressions, even if they tell you it was all about harassments,” said Chehayed, of the Anti-Racism Movement. She compared it to an incident last November, when Lebanese Armenians assaulted Syrian Kurds in an Armenian majority neighbourhood in the suburbs of <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Beirut</st1:place></st1:city> for their role, she said, in the Armenian genocide under the Ottomans. <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Others dispute this version of events, saying the army did indeed round up suspects and ask Lebanese women to identify those who were guilty of harassment. <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The army said it detained 11 people, but HRW only witnessed the arrest of African migrants who presumably did not have legal residency documents. The army has not confirmed who was arrested or why. <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Nevertheless, observers are more hesitant to confirm a political agenda. “Two months ago we documented an instance where the army rounded up Syrian workers, looking for someone who had purchased a satellite device,” admitted HRW’s Houry, “but I think in Geitawi, it was more of a provocation than a political interrogation: if it was purely political they wouldn’t have rounded up also Egyptians and Sudanese.” <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The Syrians, Ahmad and Khaled, disagreed, saying the round-up of other nationalities was “a cover for the real aim of the operation.” <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Double-victims <o:p></o:p></span></b></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Some residents of Geitawi show no prejudice against Syrians and they reject the fabrication of an easy scapegoat. <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">“There is no problem with Syrians. The scoundrels [responsible for theft and harassment] come from all sorts of countries: <st1:country-region w:st="on">Sudan</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Sri Lanka</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Egypt</st1:place></st1:country-region>,” said Rami al-Abyad, a barber in his sixties. “Not all the migrants are bullies.” <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Even Ahmad, the Syrian tailor who was beaten, pointed to the good relations he has always had with his Lebanese landlords: “The house-owners were upset by the military operation and they even hid some Egyptians in their apartments.” Others don’t conceal their politically biased racism against Syrians. <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">“The irony is that many of these workers support the Syrian opposition,” said HRW’s Houry. “They have always been double victims: the regime didn’t offer them job opportunities and in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:country-region> they were seen as part of the Syrian occupation, even if <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Beirut</st1:place></st1:city> has been rebuilt on cheap Syrian labour.” <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Local landlords are also profiting from the increased Syrian presence, Lebanese residents admitted. <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The untouchable army <o:p></o:p></span></b></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">HRW is calling for a transparent investigation into the 7 October raid, but the army said any possible violation would be dealt with internally. The Ministry of Defence did not respond to IRIN’s request for information. <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">“There is a [lack of] accountability of all security forces, including the army,” said Houry. As the only respected security force in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:place></st1:country-region> amid many sectarian militias, the army is considered something of a sacred, less-easily criticized institution. <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Syrian workers who appeared on TV to comment on the raid say they have been threatened by the military, but feel they have no recourse, given the links between large parts of the Lebanese government and their ally in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Damascus</st1:place></st1:city>. <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">“Since the revolution started, no one defends us and I cannot go to the Syrian embassy to complain about what happened,” said Ahmad. <o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">*not a real name<o:p></o:p></span></div> </div>

Analysis: Catch-22 for Syrian migrants in Lebanon

Photo:  Hugh Macleod/IRIN Syrian migrants in  Lebanon  have been associated with the atrocities committed by Syrian troops during ...

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MALI: Beyond the drought - “Families will disappear”

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDi75529kH_zAUbswMztL9P8p9QFsaXthVKPnikQ75Lg6wCrCnuEv2efTKxKt8yEftdQjit4Xln7F1J-24CFy7XJNGsyFQU8vxm8z0HLlcvbLujr6TmeKxCgRuIpfSm6aIFuQj1szaWg8/s1600/201204121318260207.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDi75529kH_zAUbswMztL9P8p9QFsaXthVKPnikQ75Lg6wCrCnuEv2efTKxKt8yEftdQjit4Xln7F1J-24CFy7XJNGsyFQU8vxm8z0HLlcvbLujr6TmeKxCgRuIpfSm6aIFuQj1szaWg8/s400/201204121318260207.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo: Chris Simpson/IRIN<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">Chronic drought means some families in Kayes have nothing left to share<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><br /> </div></td></tr> </tbody></table><br /> <div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px;">KAYES (IRIN) - “It was the drought that made people move away from here,” Ousmane Touré said in Kayes, 450km northwest of Bamako, the capital of Mali, and a 10-hour bus ride across the scorched scrubland of the western Sahel. “There had been a tradition of emigration, but it was when the harvests failed in the 1970s that we saw a real surge in emigration. There was simply not enough to eat, so people took off for France, Germany and the United States. They knew it was only the way of feeding their families back home in Kayes. The same thing is happening this year.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Touré heads the Association of Returning Migrants of Kayes (AMRK), a welfare organization that tries to provide short-term shelter and counselling to people coming back to this part of the country. The returnees, particularly those from the ethnic Soninké community, which spreads across Mali, Senegal, Mauritania, Gambia and Guinea-Bissau, have played a major role in developing western Mali through their remittances and other cash transfers, giving it a stronger identity and economic base. Many of them are now deportees who have fallen foul of immigration restrictions in France and other countries. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“The emigrants have been well-organized and have always ensured money gets channelled back, building health centres, schools, even roads,” said Touré, but the economic crisis in Europe and tighter immigration controls are having a serious knock-on effect, and impoverished villages can no longer count on the same level of support. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">In Mali the three-month rainy season starts in June, with the heaviest falls in July and August. This is the time when everyone participates in the intense agricultural activity of the main cropping season, which provides most of the food for the rest of the year. The lean period occurs in the driest months, just before the next rains come. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">For Kayes, the capital of Mali’s First Region, which borders Mauritania, Senegal and Guinea, 2012 is a particularly tough year. Besides the effects of political turbulence elsewhere in the country and a rebellion in the north, serious food security problems appeared months ago, after sparse rains. Surveys by the government and international agencies identified Kayes and the surrounding areas as particularly vulnerable, and likely to be exposed to severe food shortages as an already impoverished population experienced the impact of failed harvests. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheL19j6_UQ2z_AiIYxfK9UsTUL1hFvEnl_uYBPiizumHrW-1lX4WkbqwA3mC5LwE8NoauU6ZgTkrwafZmZU_DrsKvkYxQfTfhPokwfD5Z33mqSEkHJaYrIdLV98elxTZR3wAWNsAvVQZU/s1600/201204121313410273.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheL19j6_UQ2z_AiIYxfK9UsTUL1hFvEnl_uYBPiizumHrW-1lX4WkbqwA3mC5LwE8NoauU6ZgTkrwafZmZU_DrsKvkYxQfTfhPokwfD5Z33mqSEkHJaYrIdLV98elxTZR3wAWNsAvVQZU/s1600/201204121313410273.jpg" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo: Chris Simpson/IRIN<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">Mariam Cissoko, President of a Farmers Association in Kayes </span></span></div></span></td></tr> </tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px;">By February, market prices for sorghum, millet, groundnuts and other basic foodstuffs were grossly inflated; food reserves were depleted well ahead of the usual lean season, with alarming shortages of seeds. There were complaints that the government’s emergency food rations had given temporary respite to some villages but had ignored dozens more, as well as serious nutritional concerns, particularly for children. The UN estimated that 1.6 million Malians would be food insecure in 2012.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The events in the capital and the north have overshadowed the food crisis in the west. “A lot of things have been put on standby,” said Abdoulaye Samoura, advocacy officer for NGO Oxfam. “There have been serious delays in getting food distributed.” The dramatic price hikes at local markets in January and February have eased off, but there is no reason for complacency. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“What do you do when there is no food and you have to take care of five, 10, 20 people?” Touré asked. The answer is an exodus of men to Bamako, or across the border into Senegal, or to the gold-mining areas 75km to the south. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Mariam Cissoko, who heads the women’s section of the Association des Organisations Professionnelles Paysannes - Association of Professional Peasant Farmers (AOPP) - in Kayes, confirms that 2012 has been markedly worse. “It rained for only month of the usual three (in 2011) and that has meant drought and everything that comes with it,” she said. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“For us, the Bambara people, we don’t have the same tradition of emigration as the Soninké. We are agro-pastoralists. If you work the land, you will also have some livestock. But there is a strong spirit of solidarity here. In normal times, if you have something in reserve, you will give to those who don’t. But times like these, people just don’t have anything to spare.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The priorities are stark. “Feed us and feed our animals,” stressed Cissoko. “If NGOs come and talk to us about education, that is all well and good, but we need food first. Without that, everything falls to pieces. People will get sick. Children won’t go to school. Men may be able to take off and look for opportunities elsewhere, but women and children are stuck where they are.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3pSssYUTrh5AwhvPiLyAHaRms_ErqVFEVTvBdOB7hM7HJgnD4GGsYcYhcZ3ngWT7I0-Cu38I8xx8kQ3kjhc9ud02pb9COFbk201nky3AL54c793qGYXXsmxSblojeG7bKCyJ7P5BvPcY/s1600/201204121310520793.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3pSssYUTrh5AwhvPiLyAHaRms_ErqVFEVTvBdOB7hM7HJgnD4GGsYcYhcZ3ngWT7I0-Cu38I8xx8kQ3kjhc9ud02pb9COFbk201nky3AL54c793qGYXXsmxSblojeG7bKCyJ7P5BvPcY/s1600/201204121310520793.jpg" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo: Chris Simpson/IRIN<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">Market gardening is increasingly important to boost food security</span></span></div></td></tr> </tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px;">Kayes has been described as the second hottest place in Africa after Djibouti. “I grew up here and I remember an abundance of corn. We didn’t have droughts like we get now,” Cissoko told IRIN. “In the hottest months, the temperature normally goes to 42 or 43 degrees Celsius, but last year it was 47 or 48 at times, in the shade. The desert is advancing and the climatic changes are here for everyone to see. It has all come progressively.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Food aid from the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and others may ease the problem, but Cissoko says rural communities in the Kayes region are exhausted by the cycle of drought and dependency. They need long-term practical help as they confront shrinking pasture and ongoing food deficits. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“We need proper cereal banks in villages; we need irrigation systems that protect agriculture; we need a credit system that can work, where people can afford the interest rates,” she told IRIN. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Kayes town lies on the banks of the Senegal River. In stark contrast to the dominating barrenness of the western Sahel, the riverbanks are studded with neatly tended plots yielding tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and other crops. This is all part of the maraîchage, or market gardening that provides women in particular with a livelihood. “When I was a child, people said: ‘You will never get to plant fruit and vegetables here,’” but they were wrong. That was forty years ago. It began timidly, but the gardening has really picked up.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">But Cissoko acknowledges that cereal production is critical, and Ousmane Touré is equally blunt in demanding that the state and its international partners step up their efforts to help Kayes cope with the food deficits and the devastating drought. “What do you do when there is no food?” he asked. “People will not stay here. Families will disappear.” <o:p></o:p></span></div></div>

MALI: Beyond the drought - “Families will disappear”

Photo: Chris Simpson/IRIN Chronic drought means some families in Kayes have nothing left to share KAYES (IRIN) - “It was the drought t...

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YEMEN: Tortured for Ransom

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"><span style="font-size: 11px;"><i><br /> </i></span></span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1frostJiXK0lW1uwUprU-JOuDecOWuB8qs1LIsoIrfRYIT0t5HGh2Ra1I_8qredqJbAaW39MDDTFiePEIaZpa1EZtP4bizagcYBqn_wzuY5ukEK30DadnxWuGrxFnU6pB7gncrZxqaR8/s1600/201203090814080933.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1frostJiXK0lW1uwUprU-JOuDecOWuB8qs1LIsoIrfRYIT0t5HGh2Ra1I_8qredqJbAaW39MDDTFiePEIaZpa1EZtP4bizagcYBqn_wzuY5ukEK30DadnxWuGrxFnU6pB7gncrZxqaR8/s400/201203090814080933.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;">Photo:  <span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><a href="http://www.irinnews.org/photo/">Adel Yahya/IRIN</a></span></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">African migrants in Yemen</span></span></i></div></td></tr> </tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">HAJJAH (IRIN) - The discovery of 70 battered men and women held captive in a remote area of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Yemen</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s Hajjah Governorate near the Saudi Arabian border has sparked an investigation into the torture and extortion of African immigrants by criminal gangs, say local authorities. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The men and women, Oromos and ethnic Somalis from Ethiopia’s Somali Region, had been held for some time in a house in the Sharqia area of Haradh city, and were found wearing just their underwear. Two men who managed to escape by jumping over the wall of the house, alerted the authorities. Their captors, they said, had beaten them with pipes, burned them with cigarettes and poured liniment in their eyes, making them scream in pain. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"We are really shocked," said Ali Ibrahim, a criminal investigator in Haradh. "I have been in the department for 15 years and I don't remember anything like this… It's unbelievable that this was going on in our own back yard.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Another government official who preferred anonymity told IRIN: "This problem is unique. No one could imagine that the people were kept in a smuggler’s house for such a long period of time. We don’t know how many were killed.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Many of the victims, according to head of Haradh Security Department Mohammed Najad, were trying to find their way to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:place></st1:country-region> to get work, but had ended up in the hands of criminals who demanded thousands of dollars in ransom for their release. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The immigrants are tortured until their families send ransom money, or until enough new immigrants arrive, as there is simply not enough space to keep all the migrants, said Berhane Taklu-Nagga, head of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) office in Haradh. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">On 6 March, the local independent news website <b><i>Al-Masdaronline.net</i></b> published pictures of some of the victims. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">According to a recent Interior Ministry report, 170 Africans were held captive, tortured and mistreated by criminals in Haradh between January 2011 and February 2012. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">“The victims include 91 young men, 10 women, 50 children and 19 elderly men,” the report said, adding that most had been beaten, scalded or punched in the face, leaving some with visual and hearing problems. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">In February, the ministry said, police in Haradh had arrested two suspects. One was holding 49 and the other 79 Ethiopian illegal immigrants. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The authorities are still searching for another 20 Ethiopian female immigrants whom they believe are at risk of being tortured and raped, said Hamoud Haidar, head of Haradh Local Authority. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Rape <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">One common method of torture is rape. “According to the testimonies collected, it appears that the majority of the approximately 3,000 women held by smugglers in Haradh over the past year were raped, many of them repeatedly,” said UNHCR’s Taklu-Nagga. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">In a sample of 24 interviewees, 17 said that they had been raped, according to Taklu-Nagga. “The figure is expected to be much higher, considering that rape victims are typically very reluctant to come forward, particularly those from conservative African societies where victims of sexual assault are often ostracized by their communities,” he told IRIN. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Some of the rape victims got pregnant. “Only after eight months when my father was able to send the smugglers US$5,000, did they release me,” recounted one of the rape victims, who requested anonymity. “I must have an abortion. My husband should not know what happened to me in Haradh, and I must not give birth to this child.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">One of the male victims told IRIN that several men were raped as well - as punishment for trying to prevent the rape of the women. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Screaming at night <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Other victims lost body parts. Adeemi Abdullahi lost his left eye after being <o:p></o:p></span></div><table align="right" border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #aabbdc; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(51, 102, 153); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(51, 102, 153); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(51, 102, 153); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1pt; border-top-color: rgb(51, 102, 153); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1pt; margin-bottom: 3.75pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: -0.75pt; width: 190px;"><tbody> <tr> <td style="border: none; padding: 3.75pt 3.75pt 3.75pt 3.75pt;"> <div class="MsoNormal"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype id="_x0000_t75" coordsize="21600,21600" o:spt="75" o:preferrelative="t" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" filled="f" stroked="f"> <v:stroke joinstyle="miter"/> <v:formulas> <v:f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"/> <v:f eqn="sum @0 1 0"/> <v:f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"/> <v:f eqn="prod @2 1 2"/> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"/> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"/> <v:f eqn="sum @0 0 1"/> <v:f eqn="prod @6 1 2"/> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"/> <v:f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"/> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"/> <v:f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"/> </v:formulas> <v:path o:extrusionok="f" gradientshapeok="t" o:connecttype="rect"/> <o:lock v:ext="edit" aspectratio="t"/> </v:shapetype><v:shape id="_x0000_s1026" type="#_x0000_t75" alt="''" style='position:absolute; margin-left:-388.15pt;margin-top:-494.25pt;width:17.25pt;height:13.5pt; z-index:1;mso-wrap-distance-left:0;mso-wrap-distance-top:0; mso-wrap-distance-right:0;mso-wrap-distance-bottom:0; mso-position-horizontal:absolute;mso-position-horizontal-relative:text; mso-position-vertical:absolute;mso-position-vertical-relative:line' o:allowoverlap="f"> <v:imagedata src="file:///C:\Users\wisdom\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image001.jpg" o:title="quotopen"/> <w:wrap type="square"/> </v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><img align="left" alt="''" height="18" src="file:///C:/Users/wisdom/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.jpg" v:shapes="_x0000_s1026" width="23" /><!--[endif]--><strong><span style="color: white; font-family: Tahoma;">Only after eight months when my father was able to send the smugglers US$5,000, did they release me…I must have an abortion. My husband should not know what happened to me in Haradh, and I must not give birth to this child</span></strong><span style="color: white; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9.0pt;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape id="_x0000_i1025" type="#_x0000_t75" alt="''" style='width:17.25pt;height:13.5pt'> <v:imagedata src="file:///C:\Users\wisdom\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image002.jpg" o:href="http://www.irinnews.org/images/design/quotclose.jpg"/> </v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><img align="absMiddle" alt="''" height="18" src="file:///C:/Users/wisdom/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image002.jpg" v:shapes="_x0000_i1025" width="23" /><!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div></td> </tr> </tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">tortured for two months in Abs District, Hajjah Governorate. He showed IRIN marks from the lashings he had received on his back and legs, and scratches on his face and head. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">“They had been beating me up mercilessly for more than 50 days… They didn’t give me even a paper tissue to wipe blood from my eye,” the 30-year-old Ethiopian said. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">When he was captured he was given five days to contact any person he knew to transfer money to his captors. He failed. “From day six began my hardest ordeal,” he said. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">A resident of the Sharqia area said he and his neighbours could hear screaming at night but feared reporting it to the police. In mid-February, the authorities approached a suspected detention house, but were confronted by gunmen. “They fired at us and damaged our cars,” said Haradh local authority head Haidar. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">So far, Haradh Security Department has identified 19 owners of properties with yards and high walls in villages outside the city suspected of being used as detention centres. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Despite widespread unrest in Yemen in the past year, there has been close to a 100 percent increase in the number of Ethiopians arriving in Yemen from the Horn of Africa: more than 65,000 Ethiopians have arrived, compared to 34,422 in 2010, said the International Organization of Migration (IOM) in December. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">According to UNHCR’s Taklu-Nagga, 10,000-15,000 Ethiopian immigrants annually enter Haradh illegally along <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Yemen</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s western coast.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div>

YEMEN: Tortured for Ransom

Photo:   Adel Yahya/IRIN African migrants in Yemen HAJJAH (IRIN) - The discovery of 70 battered men and women held captive in a remote ...

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NIGERIA-CHAD: Migrants Fleeing Boko Haram Violence Await Aid

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /> <div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i><br /> </i></span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp3qfKafco71-C3jCoPxzB-eFBNHxDBcSn355zDnDfO4jof30oLqRBANGy2aPQmhuqwsAiySC_-KJQq7CXzgxYHf4mw5hCPyS6ZtMYV02xM1cbP6H1CRMZ2Vm7wdEY-r6bNYnGWFldpoo/s1600/201203060939430937.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp3qfKafco71-C3jCoPxzB-eFBNHxDBcSn355zDnDfO4jof30oLqRBANGy2aPQmhuqwsAiySC_-KJQq7CXzgxYHf4mw5hCPyS6ZtMYV02xM1cbP6H1CRMZ2Vm7wdEY-r6bNYnGWFldpoo/s1600/201203060939430937.jpg" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; font-size: medium; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Photo: Jules Laouhingamaye/UNICEF<o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; font-size: medium; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Most of the migrants are Koranic students, aged 6-14<o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div></td></tr> </tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">BOL (CHAD) (IRIN) - Some 1,000 Chadian migrants - most of them children separated from their families - are waiting for aid in the village of N’Gbouboua in the Lac region of western Chad having fled Boko Haram-related violence in Nigeria, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">With more arriving each day - some 100 have arrived in the last 48 hours according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) - the food situation is getting desperate, say aid workers. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Migrants told UNICEF they fled the villages of Douri and Madaye in eastern Nigeria when members of the Boko Haram militant group attacked them, burning down houses. Police and military forces then arrived and started firing at those who remained, claiming they were Boko Haram supporters, according to witness accounts. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Some 10,000 people have reportedly fled northern Nigeria for Chad and Niger in recent weeks, fleeing violent crackdowns and Boko Haram violence. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The head of the canton and sub-head of the district have put together a local emergency team to register migrants and try to build them a makeshift shelter on the outskirts of N’Gbouboua. Most of the migrants are currently sheltering in the village’s two mosques and one church. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Some 557 of the migrants are children, 80 percent of them Koranic students or `talibés’, who live with and support their Koranic teachers (`marabouts’), said a senior district official. According to IOM, most of these children come from the Lac Chad region, including the villages of N’djelea, Bagasoula and N’gloua. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Attacks by Boko Haram and ensuing violent crackdowns by Nigerian police and military forces have killed up to 1,000 people in Nigeria since 2009. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Residents of the surrounding eastern Nigerian villages of Dougouri, Folkine, Koyorom and Malfahtri also fled. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">To reach N’Gbouboua, each migrant had to take up to six boats to cross Lake Chad as the crossing is often interrupted by river banks and boats have to avoid very low water levels. Migrants told UNICEF Water and Sanitation Officer Jules Laouhingamaye that many had stayed behind in the Chadian village of Faroro nearer the Nigerian border, some 30km from N’Gouboua. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Begging to survive <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The needs are enormous and migrants urgently “need everything”, said Laouhingamaye, with food and water the most urgent priorities. UNICEF has counted a significant number of breastfeeding women among the migrants, many of whom have had little or nothing to eat in over a week. Village residents are sharing what little food they have but there is simply not enough to go around, he said. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><br /> </span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBCleB_Rw8Q43TUR7rQFUpG0jc8D0i7Z8I15KPDmKqWFuwe3Q4dM2DFQYWK5Ij5qZ6eSfjfnWrh6ifq4Fhnk3vf71RTyWzAE_cZN_o3UFOBVna9DNEgcNeZo2EhEnTaF-ZTATXHDN3w88/s1600/201203060937590504.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBCleB_Rw8Q43TUR7rQFUpG0jc8D0i7Z8I15KPDmKqWFuwe3Q4dM2DFQYWK5Ij5qZ6eSfjfnWrh6ifq4Fhnk3vf71RTyWzAE_cZN_o3UFOBVna9DNEgcNeZo2EhEnTaF-ZTATXHDN3w88/s1600/201203060937590504.jpg" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; font-size: medium; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo: Jules Laouhingamaye/UNICEF<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; font-size: medium; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Locals are collecting straw to build a hangar to house the migrants </span></span></div></td></tr> </tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Many of the talibés, accustomed to begging for alms, are going door-to-door begging for food, but the villagers “have had enough - they’re starting to get angry,” he said. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">UNICEF’s Laouhingamaye, along with staff from their partner NGO Secours Islamique France (SIF), have distributed soap and some water containers to migrants, and are putting together a water and sanitation response following a rapid evaluation on 3 and 4 March. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>“We’re doing what we can to help get them sanitation materials, but food is needed now,” he told IRIN in Bol, (capital of Lac Region in Chad, some 125km away), having just returned from the site. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The deputy head of the region has asked the regional authorities and aid agencies for aid but thus far no food has been delivered. “Food is the immediate priority,” Laouhingamaye told IRIN in Bol. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The UN country team, including representatives from the World Food Programme, is meeting on 6 March to plan the UN response. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Reaching N’Gbouboua involves travelling on appalling roads with maximum speeds of 45km per hour, and a river crossing on a rudimentary raft that will take nothing larger than a 4WD vehicle. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Among the migrants are some 100 Christians - most of them farmers from the Mayo Kebi and Tandjile regions of southern Chad. “We will have to help provide these groups with transport so they can return to their homes,” said IOM’s Sufi. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">If the resources are available, IOM will start an operation to help migrants return to their homes as soon as possible said Sufi. The organization recently helped some 100,000 Chadian returnees home after they fled violence in Libya. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>“We will follow the same approach here... This is a migration crisis. It is risky to leave these people there [so close to the border]. These people have nothing to do with Boko Haram,” Sufi told IRIN from the capital, N’djamena. IOM has already distributed some medicines but many more are needed. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Some of the migrants who hail from Chad’s Kanem region further north have already started to make their way home, according to IOM; while among those in N’Gbouboua, most told UNICEF they want to return to their homes in Chad, while some hope to return to Nigeria if things become less insecure. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Tracing families <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Reunifying the hundreds of `talibés’ will be an arduous task, say child protection agencies. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Gamalao Dara, a child protection consultant with UNICEF who returned from the site yesterday after evaluating protection needs, told IRIN the situation is “complicated” but many of the children they interviewed do know the names of their home villages and thus their families may be traceable. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Sufi told IRIN the task may be hard but it is not impossible: “As agencies we have experience in family reunification... We will have to see what can and cannot be done.” <o:p></o:p></span></div></div>

NIGERIA-CHAD: Migrants Fleeing Boko Haram Violence Await Aid

Photo: Jules Laouhingamaye/UNICEF Most of the migrants are Koranic students, aged 6-14 BOL (CHAD) (IRIN) - Some 1,000 Chadian migrant...

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The Middle East's "invisible refugees"

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ59woorRPCTm_Z28lDikknkTCkpQxpBmfLJengEu8Sq_VuWiw-a86Rf7AJlcJ9CksaLNLLcJugjfRl7Dfz8ir1Jbejq1i7Pw8_8yZI0Fl20JKNrqJ4n6GtOvrM1uMycC7u38wRMvayQ8/s1600/200804073.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ59woorRPCTm_Z28lDikknkTCkpQxpBmfLJengEu8Sq_VuWiw-a86Rf7AJlcJ9CksaLNLLcJugjfRl7Dfz8ir1Jbejq1i7Pw8_8yZI0Fl20JKNrqJ4n6GtOvrM1uMycC7u38wRMvayQ8/s400/200804073.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Photo: <a href="http://www.irinnews.org/photo"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;">Phil Sands/IRIN</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh argues Palestinians can become “internally displaced refugees”.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;"> Many became stuck at this border camp when they tried to flee violence in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region></st1:place><o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">after the 2003 invasion, but were denied access to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Syria</st1:place></st1:country-region><o:p></o:p></span></div></td></tr> </tbody></table><br /> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><st1:city w:st="on"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">DUBAI</span></st1:city><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"> (IRIN) - Among the migrants who found themselves caught up in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Libya</st1:country-region> during last year's war was a group of people whom one <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Oxford</st1:placename></st1:place> researcher calls "invisible": refugees who travel to third countries for work or better education.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Wedged between violence, politics, overlapping identities and restrictive definitions, these "refugee-migrants" or "refugee-students" are often overlooked and under-protected, according to Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, a lecturer in forced migration at <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Oxford</st1:place></st1:city>'s Refugee Studies Centre. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"Certain displaced populations have been hyper-visible whilst others have effectively been rendered invisible to (and by) the international community," she writes in an article soon to be published by the International Journal of Refugee Law, called Invisible Refugees and/or Overlapping Refugeedom? Protecting Sahrawis and Palestinians Displaced by the 2011 Libyan Uprising. An earlier version of her paper was recently published by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) as part of its New Issues in Refugee Research Series. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The conflict in Libya has highlighted potential gaps in the protection of Palestinian refugees who have migrated to a third country and raised complex questions about who should protect them - and how - in the case of crisis. It is a question of increasing relevance as the situation in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Syria</st1:country-region></st1:place>,home to half a million Palestinian refugees, becomes more unstable. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Palestinians targeted <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Though some estimates are as low as 30,000, the Palestinian Authority estimates there were up to 70,000 Palestinian migrants or refugees - the line between them is blurry - in Libya when hostilities broke out in February 2011 between supporters of Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi and armed rebels trying to oust him from power. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Some Palestinians were specifically targeted - their homes were ransacked and people disappeared - in the rebel capital <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Benghazi</st1:city></st1:place> and elsewhere, by both sides in the conflict, Fiddian-Qasmiyeh said. Those working in the civil service or studying at military colleges were seen to be close to the regime. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Gaddafi's use of Palestinian mercenaries in the 1970s and 1980s contributed to the perceived affiliation. Meanwhile, others were targeted because they refused to join pro-regime forces, according to news reports. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">While sub-Saharan migrants left the country en masse during the hostilities, and other countries scrambled to get their citizens out, hundreds of Palestinians were unable to flee the violence in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Libya</st1:country-region> - often turned back at the border because <st1:country-region w:st="on">Egypt</st1:country-region>, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Tunisia</st1:country-region></st1:place>, and their former host countries did not recognize their travel documents, Fiddian-Qasmiyeh said. Many of those who "chose" to stay in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Libya</st1:country-region></st1:place>, she added, did not really have the choice. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"Where would we go?" asked Fatima, a Palestinian community leader who has lived in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Libya</st1:country-region></st1:place> for 30 years. "We have no place to go back to." <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">After the fall of the capital <st1:city w:st="on">Tripoli</st1:city>, many Palestinians were evicted by force from their homes, given to them by the former government, <st1:place w:st="on">Fatima</st1:place> said. Hundreds of others displaced by heavy fighting in the Gaddafi strongholds of Sirte and Bani Walid came to <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Tripoli</st1:place></st1:city> and are now homeless, she said. But <st1:country-region w:st="on">Libya</st1:country-region> remained their best option: "We don't have a country except <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Palestine</st1:city></st1:place>, and we can't go back there... <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Libya</st1:country-region></st1:place>, with its war and difficulties, is still better than the other countries." <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"That notion of choice and the desire to stay in a context that is so insecure is essentially one of being between a rock and a hard place," said Fiddian-Qasmiyeh. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Evacuations <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">According to UNHCR, only a few thousand Palestinians in pre-war <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Libya</st1:country-region></st1:place> were registered as refugees under the 1951 Geneva Convention. Hundreds of others were offered "complimentary protection" by UNCHR - a recognition that they were stateless, could not be returned, and required humanitarian protection. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Still others came to study through Libyan scholarship programmes. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The vast majority, though, were migrants or skilled labourers who came from Gaza, the West Bank or other Palestinian refugee-hosting countries in the region - Syria, Lebanon and Jordan - with or without a contract and/or regular status. Many have lived in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Libya</st1:country-region></st1:place> for decades or were born there. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">During the conflict, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) helped evacuate 179 Palestinians from dangerous cities to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Benghazi</st1:city></st1:place>, which was more stable. Many of them decided to stay in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Libya</st1:country-region></st1:place> either because they had relatives there, had found jobs, or had faith the economy would pick up once the situation in the country stabilized, IOM spokesperson Jean-Philippe Chauzy told IRIN. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">But others went on to Salloum, a no man's land along the Libyan-Egyptian border, where they waited to be resettled, he said. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3DqjoIw7sue5hxwVYOaqPW7MclQPRVfQOzM1nIhGxKGBP3Nk_MLGtfzspWR-mUzlmsVQx2BjE_JX9yLmaank3V0RsbnKF6Gk3oQKV2T6lQF1Xs_fAxZ66tAr34fAybkxrRrsQ50gA888/s1600/201106060832340988.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="394" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3DqjoIw7sue5hxwVYOaqPW7MclQPRVfQOzM1nIhGxKGBP3Nk_MLGtfzspWR-mUzlmsVQx2BjE_JX9yLmaank3V0RsbnKF6Gk3oQKV2T6lQF1Xs_fAxZ66tAr34fAybkxrRrsQ50gA888/s640/201106060832340988.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Photo: <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home" target="_blank"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;">UNHCR</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh argues Palestinians who fled <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Libya</st1:place></st1:country-region> during the war for this camp in<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Tunisia</span></i></st1:place></st1:country-region><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;"> should be considered “double-refugees” UNHCR assisted 1,581 Palestinians stranded at<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Salloum to travel to Gaza, through the Rafah border crossing, the agency's deputy regional representative in<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 8pt;">Egypt, Elizabeth Tan, told IRIN. Only those with valid travel documentation could cross, she said.</span></i></div></td></tr> </tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Still, entry into <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Egypt</st1:country-region></st1:place> was difficult, even for those Palestinians who carried ID, due to long-standing restrictive policies towards Palestinian mobility, another humanitarian official said. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Palestinians attempting to leave <st1:country-region w:st="on">Libya</st1:country-region> through <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Tunisia</st1:country-region></st1:place> also faced complications, though they were often resolved once brought to UNHCR's attention, the official said. More than a dozen of those Palestinians who made it across are currently living in Choucha Camp on the Tunisian side of the border, said Emmanuel Gignac, current UNHCR representative in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Libya</st1:country-region></st1:place>. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"The options and potential durable solutions available to Palestinians in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Libya</st1:country-region></st1:place> and the region seem to be very strained, to say the least," Fiddian-Qasmiyeh wrote in her paper. Here are some of the reasons why: <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Refugees versus migrants <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Palestinians suffer from "overlapping refugeedoms", Fiddian-Qasmiyeh argues. They are refugees to begin with, having fled or been expelled from their land after the birth of Israel in 1948, or in the subsequent war of 1967, settling in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Jordan or Lebanon, before eventually travelling to Libya. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">But most Palestinians in Libya are not considered refugees there, as they would be in Syria, Jordan or Lebanon, both because they came as skilled labourers, but also because the Libyan government historically welcomed them as "brothers" - considering them "Arab citizens residing in Libya" rather than as refugees. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">So when conflict broke out in 2011, they found themselves in a tricky position. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">They could not return to their country of origin (<st1:city w:st="on">Palestine</st1:city>) nor to their country of habitual residence (for example, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Syria</st1:country-region>) in order to flee the violence and insecurity in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Libya</st1:country-region></st1:place>. And yet they were not registered as refugees inside the country either. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"Their `voluntary' presence there problematizes mainstream conceptualizations of 'refugeehood'," Fiddian-Qasmiyeh wrote. Even if the vast majority of Palestinians in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Libya</st1:country-region></st1:place> have not applied for asylum, many of them are de-facto refugees because they meet the definition's criteria, she said. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Thus, she argues, they should be considered "internally stuck refugees" or "internally displaced refugees" within <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Libya</st1:country-region></st1:place>, and if they are able to get out, as "double refugees". <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">She says a more appropriate model is one of overlapping and multiple refugeehoods, where refugees who use their sponsoring agency (e.g. UNHCR or UNRWA - the UN agency tasked with providing assistance, protection and advocacy for registered <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Palestine</st1:city></st1:place> refugees) to find jobs or better education are not at risk of losing their refugee label, and the international protection that accompanies it. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">But UNHCR says the distinction has little practical importance. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Palestinians who do not register as refugees in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Libya</st1:country-region> would nevertheless receive assistance from UNHCR if they were in need, said Arafat Jamal, deputy representative of UNHCR in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Jordan</st1:country-region>, who led a three-month emergency team in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Libya</st1:country-region></st1:place> during the hostilities. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"Palestinians remain refugees whether they come here for economic reasons or not," Gignac told IRIN. "You [only] lose [your refugee status] the day you return home for good or you get integrated and get citizenship from another country." <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Politicization <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Palestinians in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Libya</st1:country-region></st1:place> were often used as political pawns, with Gaddafi threatening to, or indeed expelling, thousands of Palestinians over the years as a means of protesting against peace initiatives with which he disagreed and drawing attention to the Palestinians' inability to return to their homeland. In 1995, many Palestinians were forcibly taken to the border, and then stuck in a <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">camp</st1:placetype> <st1:placename w:st="on">Gaddafi</st1:placename></st1:place> named "The Return Camp" to make his point. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"He would campaign for increased access for a group and then expel them when it was in his interest," said Emanuela Paoletti, a researcher on migration in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Libya</st1:country-region> and author of The Migration of Power and North-South Inequalities: The Case of Italy and <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Libya</st1:country-region></st1:place>. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Technically, there is no protection gap. If you're a Palestinian in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Libya</st1:country-region></st1:place>, you do fall under UNHCR. It shouldn't be an issue mandate-wise or legal-wise. But in practice, Palestinians being so political and all these sensitivities being around them, if we apply our mandate which includes [certain] solutions, there are issues.Gaddafi's ad-hoc recruitment of migrants, including Palestinians, into the country, meant that their status was often irregular. Depending on their classification, Palestinians fall under different jurisdictions - UNHCR; UNRWA; IOM; host governments; the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO, the recognized representative organization of the Palestinian people) - or none at all, sometimes leaving them without a guarantor. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"Who will give me my rights?" asked Fatima, the Palestinian in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Libya</st1:country-region></st1:place>. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Evacuated where? And by whom? <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"Where Palestinian refugees should, could, or might want to be safely evacuated to, and by whom is a... complex issue," Fiddian-Qasmiyeh writes. "Can the international community either expect, or indeed responsibly allow, Palestinians to `return' to <st1:city w:st="on">Gaza</st1:city>, the refugee camps in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Lebanon</st1:country-region>, or the explosive situation in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Syria</st1:country-region></st1:place>?" <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Despite vulnerability for Palestinians across the region, Arab states have resisted permanent resettlement solutions outside of the Middle East out of a fear that they would jeopardize the Palestinian right to return to their original homeland, putting the collective goal to return at loggerheads with the individual's best interests of safety. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">But resettlement remains an option, current UNHCR representative in Libya Gignac said, albeit a sensitive one. Palestinian refugees in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region> who tried to flee the violence there after the 2003 <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> invasion and were refused entry at the Jordanian border were eventually resettled in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Brazil</st1:country-region></st1:place> after being stranded in the Rweished border camp for years. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"Technically, there is no protection gap," he said. "If you're a Palestinian in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Libya</st1:country-region></st1:place>, you do fall under UNHCR. It shouldn't be an issue mandate-wise or legal-wise. But in practice, Palestinians being so political and all these sensitivities being around them, if we apply our mandate which includes [certain] solutions, there are issues. They are not always wanted...Palestinians themselves have internalized this notion and feel guilty about integrating in countries because they feel they lose the right of return... that they have somehow betrayed the cause," Gignac added. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">As far as UNHCR is concerned, a refugee never loses the right to return to his or her homeland, even if citizenship in another country is acquired. Still, Fiddian-Qasmiyeh told IRIN the Libyan example shows that theory and practice can diverge, raising many questions about the real options available to Palestinian "refugee-migrants". <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"We do need to take the protection needs seriously. That requires that conversation [about gaps and solutions] takes place." <o:p></o:p></span></div></div>

The Middle East's "invisible refugees"

Photo:  Phil Sands/IRIN Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh argues Palestinians can become “internally displaced refugees”.  Many became stuck at this...

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