From Syria to Sudan, refugee agencies need money, access and an end to fighting, UNHCR official tells Arab News

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Updated 22 September 2023
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From Syria to Sudan, refugee agencies need money, access and an end to fighting, UNHCR official tells Arab News

From Syria to Sudan, refugee agencies need money, access and an end to fighting, UNHCR official tells Arab News
  • UN refugee agency’s assistant high commissioner for operations made the comments on the sidelines of UN General Assembly session
  • Raouf Mazou said refugees not dependent on humanitarian assistance are more capable of going back to their place of origin

NEW YORK: With every passing year, the global displacement crisis becomes more and more severe. The number of people forced to flee their homes crossed the 110 million mark in May this year, yet there seems to be no end in sight to the phenomenon.

From the Mediterranean and the Andaman seas to the English Channel and the US-Mexico border, refugees and migrants have been dying in their thousands every year attempting dangerous sea crossings and land routes.

Just last fortnight, more than 120 small boats arrived in Lampedusa in the span of roughly 24 hours, bringing the number of people at the local reception center alone to more than the Mediterranean island’s full-time population.

According to Italy’s Interior Ministry, more than 127,000 migrants have reached the country by sea so far this year, nearly double the number for the same period last year.

While conflict and violence are traditionally the main drivers of displacement, climate change and economic instability are also to blame, Raouf Mazou, assistant high commissioner for operations at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, told Arab News on the sidelines of the 78th session of the UN General Assembly here.




Syrian children gather at a refugee camp in Saadnayel in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. (AFP)

“We see an acceleration in this number over the past 10 years. We’ve seen a constantly increasing number of people displaced, internally displaced refugees,” he said.

Citing the example of five years of failed rains in Somalia leading to drought, which subsequently led to clashes over access to water and eventually waves of displacement, Mazou said: “In the past, we tended to look at displacement simply as a group of people fighting and crossing the border. Now, more and more, we’re thinking, why? Why are they fighting and what are the reasons? And what we’re seeing is droughts.”

As the number of refugees and displaced persons continues to grow worldwide, so too does anti-migrant rhetoric. Various European leaders and officials, from Hungary’s Viktor Orban and France’s Marie Le Pen to former British PM David Cameron and former Polish PM Jaroslaw Kaczynski, have made strong anti-migrant statements.

Despite Europe’s stricter migration policies and investments in surveillance technology, people-smuggling networks across the Mediterranean Sea have demonstrated they can quickly adapt to the situation. “All indicators in Tunisia and the broader region were showing increased arrivals were going to continue,” Tasnim Abderrahim a Tunisian researcher at The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, told the Associated Press news agency recently.

Though panic over the waves of refugees reaching Europe’s shores may be on the rise, Mazou’s comments suggest that the brunt of the displacement crisis is being borne by countries with far less resources at their disposal.




Raouf Mazou is assistant high commissioner for operations at UNHCR. (Supplied)

“Most of the 110 million that I’m talking about are people who are internally displaced,” he said. “Some 75 percent of the refugees are in low- and middle-income countries. So, people are not fleeing toward the so-called wealthier countries.”

According to UNHCR statistics, the 46 least developed countries account for less than 1.3 percent of global GDP, and yet are home to more than 20 percent of all refugees.

The influx of people to primarily low- and middle-income nations, Mazou said, is an issue both for those fleeing their homes and the countries to which they flee.

“Because they are low- and middle-income countries, they already have issues and challenges,” he said.

According to Mazou, since the eruption of the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on April 15, more than 1 million people have fled Sudan into neighboring countries, primarily Chad, South Sudan and Egypt.

INNUMBERS

• 108.4m People worldwide who are forcibly displaced.

• 76 percent Share of refugees hosted by low- and middle-income countries.

Most of Sudan’s neighbors are already suffering from their own internal crises, with many of them already hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees.

“We believe that we now have about 400,000 refugees who have arrived into Chad, and that is added to about 600,000. So, we’re getting close to 1 million refugees in a country that is quite fragile. And they are also coming to a place that has experienced droughts on a number of occasions,” he said.

South Sudan has also faced an influx of people from Sudan, many of them South Sudanese who had been displaced by conflicts in their own country. Mazou said about 50,000 people have crossed into South Sudan since the start of the current Sudan conflict — “they have gone back to a country which has huge problems: security problems, political problems, governance problems, and infrastructure problems.”

For now, Sudan remains one of the countries most in need of assistance. Mazou said that of the $1 billion in funding needed to serve the needs of Sudanese refugees and internally displaced persons, UNHCR has received just over $200 million thus far.




Syrian refugees walk on their way back to the Syrian city of Jarabulus. (AFP)

“The problem of not having the resources that we need is that we are not in a position of making sure that health care is available and accessible to this mass of people who are leaving. Support from the international community would help us to make sure that the health care that is required is provided. We need to make sure that water is available. We need to make sure that education is available,” he said.

UNHCR teams have been active on the ground in the region, setting up reception centers at border points to register and identify vulnerable people and provide basic aid such as food and water. That said, the traditional approach of the UNHCR is no longer appropriate in the face of modern conflicts, according to Mazou.

“For many years, the way we were supporting these countries was to establish camps — refugee camps — and then provide support and assistance in these camps, expecting that people would not stay long and they would go back to their place of origin,” he said.

“What we’ve seen, unfortunately, is that people stay 10 years, 15 years, 20 years. What we’re trying to push for now — and we see a number of countries are welcoming that — is inclusion and integration. So, basically saying, ‘you’re a refugee, you’ve crossed into our country, but you’re going to be supported as part of the community that has welcomed you. You will be allowed to work and contribute to the economy of the country where you are, and then later on you will go back.’”

Mazou said that a number of countries have adopted this approach in whole or in part, citing the examples of Syrian refugees who are able to work in Jordan, refugees in Kenya who are able to find employment, and Venezuelan nationals in Colombia who are able to obtain documents that allow them to work and become part of society.




According to Mazou, more than 1 million people have fled Sudan as a result of the conflict. (AFP)

International financial institutions and regional financial institutions, including the African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, Interamerican Development Bank, World Bank and International Finance Corporation, have all worked with the UNHCR and national governments in order to allow refugees to become self-sufficient.

While UNHCR has pushed for a self-reliance-centered approach, according to Mazou the funding needs for such projects are massive.

“You need development resources, long-term resources, multi-year resources, to be able to put in place situations where the refugees, even if they are in exile, are in a position to live normal lives until they can go back to their place of origin,” he said.

“What we’ve also seen is that when refugees are not dependent on humanitarian assistance when they’re in exile, they’re in a better position to go back to their place of origin and rebuild their communities.”


Iran says reviving nuclear deal ‘useless’

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Iran says reviving nuclear deal ‘useless’

Iran says reviving nuclear deal ‘useless’
TEHRAN: Iran said Saturday that attempting to revive its landmark nuclear deal with world powers that was effectively scrapped by former US president Donald Trump was increasingly “useless.”
“Today, the more we advance, the more the JCPOA becomes useless,” Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a speech to students at the University of Tehran, using the initials of the official name of the nuclear deal.
In 2015, Iran agreed to curbs on its nuclear program in exchange for a lifting of sanctions.
But while the deal was signed with several world powers — including China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany — it was rendered effectively useless when the United States unilaterally withdrew under Trump in 2018.
With the US reimposing sanctions, international banks and businesses have stayed away from Iran for fear of falling foul of US regulators.
Tentative efforts to revive the deal by Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, have been at a standstill since mid-2022.
“Because (Iran’s) red lines have sometimes been ignored by the other side, we are not currently on the path to return to the agreement,” Amir-Abdollahian said.
“Of course, this does not mean that we have set the agreement aside. If the agreement serves our interests, (we will accept it) with all its flaws,” he added.
The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, called in October on the international community not to fail in Iran as it did in North Korea, which now has nuclear weapons.
Iran says its nuclear program is entirely peaceful, but since 2021 the UN body has struggled to monitor the development of its capabilities.

Turkiye’s Erdogan denounces UN ‘Israel protection council’

Turkiye’s Erdogan denounces UN ‘Israel protection council’
Updated 6 min ago
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Turkiye’s Erdogan denounces UN ‘Israel protection council’

Turkiye’s Erdogan denounces UN ‘Israel protection council’
  • “Since October 7, the security council has become an Israel protection and defense council,” Erdogan said
  • “Is this justice?” asked Erdogan, adding that “the world is bigger than five,” a reference to the five veto-wielding nations in the UN Security Council

ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday denounced the UN Security Council after the United States vetoed a cease-fire resolution for Gaza, describing the international body as the ‘Israel protection council’.
“Since October 7, the security council has become an Israel protection and defense council,” Erdogan said.
The United States on Friday vetoed a Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in the intense fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
Washington thus dashed a growing clamour for a halt to fighting that had been led by UN chief Antonio Guterres and Arab nations.
“Is this justice?” asked Erdogan, adding that “the world is bigger than five,” a reference to the five veto-wielding nations in the UN Security Council.
“Another world is possible, but without America,” the Turkish leader said.
“The United States stands by Israel with its money and military equipment. Hey, America! How much are you going to pay for that?” he added.
“Every day the Declaration of Human Rights is violated in Gaza,” he said, as the world this weekend celebrates the 75th anniversary of the declaration.
The UN resolution for a cease-fire was submitted more than two months after the start of the war in Gaza triggered by Hamas’s bloody attack on Israeli soil on October 7, which, according to the Israeli authorities, killed 1,200 people.
Since then Hamas has put the death toll in Gaza at 17,490, mostly women and children.


Israelis on edge as fears grow of wider Lebanon conflict

Israelis on edge as fears grow of wider Lebanon conflict
Updated 24 min 50 sec ago
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Israelis on edge as fears grow of wider Lebanon conflict

Israelis on edge as fears grow of wider Lebanon conflict
  • In peacetime, visitors flock to the town to enjoy its pleasant climate and good surfing
  • For over two months, residents have been living under the threat of near-daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and Hezbollah

NAHARIYA, Israel: In the seaside haven of Nahariya, the shock still lingers on Daniel Bussidan’s face. A recent rocket attack killed his friend’s father, and now this Israeli beach town, the closest to Lebanon, stands on edge.
“I’m scared from the attack,” said the 26-year-old who works in his father’s pastry shop on the Mediterranean resort’s eucalyptus-lined main street.
His friend’s father was killed when a rocket struck his farm while he was working, Bussidan told AFP.
“He died on the spot,” Bussidan said.
In peacetime, visitors flock to the town to enjoy its pleasant climate and good surfing.
But for over two months, residents have been living under the threat of near-daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and powerful Lebanese movement Hezbollah.
The Iran-backed Shiite group says it entered the fray in support of Hamas on October 8, the day after the Palestinian militants launched their attack in Israel which killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli officials.
Aiming to destroy Hamas, Israel launched a military offensive that the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza says has killed 17,490 people, mostly women and children, and left the Palestinian territory in ruins.
In northern Israel, residents fear a wider conflict emerging along the border with Lebanon, which snakes along a hill in the distance from Nahariya.
More than 120 people have been killed on the Lebanese side of the border since October 7, mostly Hezbollah fighters and more than a dozen civilians, according to an AFP tally.
Israel says six of its soldiers and four Israeli civilians have been killed in the area, and Lebanon lost its first soldier in the exchanges on Tuesday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Hezbollah that if it “chooses to start a global war, then it will turn Beirut and South Lebanon... into Gaza and Khan Yunis with its own hands.”
Business has slumped along the Nahariya seafront, and many more rifles have appeared, slung over people’s shoulders.
Resident Nathalie Betito, 44, believes Hezbollah fighters could infiltrate the border. But she made a point of celebrating Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights, with around 100 people at the central synagogue this week.
She and her husband Arie, 47, immigrated from France five years ago. Nahariya represents an attractive destination, with special tax breaks due to its exposed position.
Arie, who now helps new arrivals at the town hall, said residents were nonetheless living in peril.
Hezbollah has thousands of “missiles pointed at us,” he said, stressing that he did not believe in escalating the conflict into a “total” war.
“The price to pay would be huge,” he said. “Neither side wants that.”
But people in Nahariya are preparing for the worst. Efi Dayan, 60, said he “knows there’s going to be a war here.”
“We’re getting ready with food, clothes. We’re waiting for it,” he said calmly under the winter sun.
But the military job in Gaza needs to be completed first, said Bussidan, a former soldier himself.
“We have to finish Hamas and take care of all civilians on both sides,” he said.


New Gaza aid crossing at Kerem Shalom being tested, not open yet — UN official

New Gaza aid crossing at Kerem Shalom being tested, not open yet — UN official
Updated 09 December 2023
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New Gaza aid crossing at Kerem Shalom being tested, not open yet — UN official

New Gaza aid crossing at Kerem Shalom being tested, not open yet — UN official
  • New crossing will allow trucks from Jordan into Gaza

CAIRO: A new process for inspecting aid for Gaza at the Kerem Shalom crossing is being tested, but efforts to get permission for trucks to enter through the crossing and ramp up relief are still ongoing, a senior UN official told Reuters on Saturday.
Under the new system, trucks would come to the Kerem Shalom crossing on the border between Israel, Gaza and Egypt for the first time from Jordan, before entering Gaza from Rafah, about 3 km (1.86 miles) away.
But the trucks would need to be allowed to enter Gaza directly through Kerem Shalom to alleviate an increasingly desperate situation in the coastal enclave, said Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the UN World Food Programme.
Israel has so far rebuffed pleas from the United Nations and others to open Kerem Shalom, but they both signalled on Thursday that Kerem Shalom could soon help process delivery of humanitarian supplies into Gaza.
Until now, limited quantities of aid have been delivered from Egypt through the Rafah crossing, which is ill-equipped to process large numbers of trucks.
Trucks have been driving more than 40 km (24.85 miles) south to Egypt’s border with Israel before returning to Rafah, leading to bottlenecks and delays.
A process to test the inspection system at Kerem Shalom for trucks arriving from Jordan is underway, said Skau, who visited Gaza on Friday.
“It’s good, it’s useful because it would also be the first time that we can then bring in a pipeline from Jordan. But we need that entry point as well because that would make all the difference,” he said in an interview.
“If you get that open, then it’s just a matter of how much is available and how much can be absorbed on the other side in an orderly fashion, but then certainly that capacity would not be the issue,” he added.
“We have front-loaded with our internal resources so that we have food available in Egypt and in Jordan to reach some 1,000,000 people in one month. We are ready to roll. The trucks are ready to move.”
Skau said the situation inside Gaza was increasingly chaotic as people grabbed what they could from aid distribution points, with larger numbers of people displaced southwards close to the border with Egypt and aid trucks at risk of being stopped by desperate residents if they even slow down at an intersection.
“There is a question for how long this can continue, because the humanitarian operation is collapsing,” he said.
“Half of the population are starving, nine out of 10 are not eating every day. Obviously the needs are massive.”


US ‘responsible for bloodshed’ of Gaza children after UN veto: Abbas

US ‘responsible for bloodshed’ of Gaza children after UN veto: Abbas
Updated 09 December 2023
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US ‘responsible for bloodshed’ of Gaza children after UN veto: Abbas

US ‘responsible for bloodshed’ of Gaza children after UN veto: Abbas
  • Abbas said the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in general had reached an alarming stage that requires an international conference and guarantees by world powers

Ramallah/Palestinian Territories: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said Saturday that the United States was “responsible for the bloodshed” of children in the Gaza Strip after it vetoed a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in the Palestinian territory at a special meeting of the UN Security Council.
“The president has described the American position as aggressive and immoral, a flagrant violation of all humanitarian principles and values, and holds the United States responsible for the bloodshed of Palestinian children, women and elderly people in the Gaza Strip,” said a statement from Abbas’s office.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday called for an immediate end to the war in Gaza and an international peace conference to work out a lasting political solution leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
In an interview with Reuters at his office in Ramallah, Abbas, 87, said the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in general had reached an alarming stage that requires an international conference and guarantees by world powers.
Besides Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, he said Israeli forces have intensified their attacks everywhere in the occupied West Bank over the past year with settlers escalating violence against Palestinian towns.
He reiterated his longstanding position in favor of negotiation rather than armed resistance to end the longstanding occupation.
“I am with peaceful resistance. I am for negotiations based on an international peace conference and under international auspices that would lead to a solution that will be protected by world powers to establish a sovereign Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem,” he said.
Abbas was speaking as Israel increased its strikes on Gaza. In two months of warfare, it has killed more than 17,000 people, wounded 46,000 and forced the displacement of around 1.9 million people, over half of them now sheltering in areas in central Gaza or close to the Egyptian border.
A senior US official said the idea of an international conference had been discussed among different partners but the proposal was still at a very preliminary stage.
“It’s one of many options on the table that we and others would consider with an open mind, but no decision has been made about that,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
Israel launched its campaign to annihilate the Hamas movement that rules Gaza after Hamas fighters went on a rampage through Israeli towns on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and seizing 240 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Abbas said that based on a binding international agreement, he would revive the weakened Palestinian Authority, implement long-awaited reforms and hold presidential and parliamentary elections, which were suspended after Hamas won in 2006 and later pushed the PA out of Gaza.
He said the PA had abided by all the peace deals signed with Israel since the 1993 Oslo Accord and the understandings that followed over the years but that Israel had reneged on its pledges to end the occupation.

DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS
Asked whether he would risk holding elections given the possibility that Hamas could win as it did in 2006, he said: “Whoever wins wins, these will be democratic elections.”
Abbas said he had planned to hold elections in April 2021 but the European Union envoy told him before the due date that Israel was objecting to voting in East Jerusalem so he was forced to call it off.
He insisted that there would not be elections without East Jerusalem, saying the PA held three rounds of elections in the past that included East Jerusalem before Israel imposed the ban.
Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. It later annexed it, declaring the whole of the city as its capital, a move not recognized internationally. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
Abbas did not give a concrete vision of a post-war plan discussed with US officials under which the PA would take over control of the strip, home for 2.3 million people. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel would not accept rule over Gaza by the Palestinian Authority as it stands.
“The United States tells us that it supports a two-state solution, that Israel is not allowed to occupy Gaza, to keep security control of Gaza or to expropriate land from Gaza,” he said in reference to a plan floated by Israel to establish a security zone in Gaza after the war.
“America doesn’t force Israel to implement what it says.”
He said the PA was still present in Gaza as an institution and still pays monthly salaries and expenses estimated at $140 million for employees, pensioners and for needy families. The PA still has three ministers present in Gaza, he added.
“We need rehabilitation, we need big support to return to Gaza,” Abbas said.
“Gaza today is not the Gaza that you know. Gaza was destroyed, its hospitals, its schools, its infrastructure, its buildings, its roads and mosques were destroyed. There is nothing left. When we return we need resources, Gaza needs reconstruction.”
“The United States which fully supports Israel bears the responsibility of what is happening in the enclave,” Abbas said.
“It is the only power that is capable of ordering Israel to stop the war and fulfil its obligations, but unfortunately it doesn’t. America is an accomplice of Israel.”