Category: General

Marking World Refugee Day, June 20, the United Nations Refugee Agency, the UNHCR, is calling on host communities to show more sympathy and love for those fleeing crises in their home country and who are now threatened by COVID-19. The UNHCR says Cameroon is home to close to half a million refugees, mostly from Nigeria and the Central African Republic.

Portraits of famous refugees adorn the walls of the annex building of the United Nations Refugee Agency in Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé. Among the most famous is Somali-American supermodel Iman, who became a refugee in 1972, Jamaican singer Bob Marley and Hong Kong-born film actor Jackie Chan.

UNHCR says the exhibition is designed to encourage refugees who have given up hope. The U.N. agency says people displaced from their countries by conflict can succeed in life if they work hard.

The refugee agency says Cameroon, with a population of around 25 million, is now home for close to 2 million refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced Cameroonians seeking refuge.

Among the 2 million are about half a million refugees, 322,000 of whom are fleeing violence in the neighboring Central African Republic and 117,000 are Nigerians escaping Boko Haram terrorism. Others are from Niger and Chad.

Olivier Guillaume Beer is the UNHCR representative in Cameroon. He said his agency is encouraging Cameroon and the refugees to live in peace.

“This is a day where we would like to have people understand that behind these figures, you have women, you have children. Each of them with his or her own story of violence, of persecution. People lost everything. Children lost their school, they lost their friends, parents lost their jobs and they need to restart a new life in a very difficult context. On World Refugee Day, we show empathy, solidarity to these people,” said Beer.

Beer said when Cameroon reported its first cases of COVID-19 in March of last year, the UNHCR made protecting refugees a priority. He spoke on Cameroon state radio, CRTV, on World Refugee Day.

“In remote centers where they [refugees] are, we did not have isolation centers, we did not have tents, we did not have masks. So, the first thing that the UNHCR did was to support the government, support the regional health directorate to make sure that if refugees and host communities are tested positive, they can find a way to be treated,” he said.

Cameroon said it deployed mobile health workers to test the refugees for COVID-19 in remote areas.

Lawrence Diyen Jam is the highest-ranking Cameroonian government official in Garoua Boulay, an administrative unit on Cameroon’s border with the C.A.R. He said his office receives many reports of confrontations between host communities and refugees.

He said last week, many people were wounded in conflicts between Cameroonian farmers and ranchers who fled the C.A.R. with their cattle. He said Cameroonians are not happy when cattle from the C.A.R. destroy their crops, causing hunger in local communities. He said there is regular fighting between refugees and their host communities over water resources.

Twenty-seven-year-old Yussuf Abdoulaye is a C.A.R. refugee. He said in spite of the challenges, Cameroon is still more peaceful than his country. He said he is not thinking of returning to the C.A.R. soon.

Abdoulaye said he and 16 other civilians fleeing post-election violence in the C.A.R. were warmly received by Cameroonian authorities and the UNHCR in Cameroon’s eastern town of Garoua Boulay. He said the community freely offered farmland to grow corn and beans. He said he is very happy because there is peace in Cameroon. He said he is encouraging refugees to respect the country’s laws.

Ten years ago, Cameroon had fewer than 250,000 refugees.

This year, Cameroon said it offered food and mattresses to C.A.R. refugees on its eastern border and Nigerian refugees in the Minawao camp on its northern border.

UNHCR Cameroon says it has received only 23% of the $100 million it needs to take care of the growing needs of refugees in the central African state. This year’s Refugee Day theme is together we heal, learn and shine.

Source: Voice of America

Shire, Ethiopia, a historical commercial city in the northern Tigray region has been overwhelmed with displaced families since war broke out last November. For VOA, Yan Boechat takes a closer look at some of the many camps created to house the region’s roughly 2 million displaced people.

Source: Voice of America

Countries accused of abusing their peoples’ human rights will come under the lens of the U.N. Human Rights Council over the next three weeks. Dozens of thematic issues and country reports on topics including the COVID-19 pandemic will be addressed during the session, which begins Monday.

The U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, will present an oral update on the human rights crisis unfolding in Myanmar since the military coup there on February 1. Her report is likely to reflect condemnation of the military leaders’ violent crackdown on the civilian population and, what she sees as a looming threat of civil war in the country.

The council also will hear updates on the human rights situation in other countries, including Eritrea, Iran, Nicaragua, South Sudan, and Syria. Separately, observers view events in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region as one of the most serious human rights issues around.

The executive director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, says reports of imminent famine, summary executions, rape and other atrocities perpetrated in Tigray warrant action by the Human Rights Council. He is calling for the adoption of a resolution condemning these practices at this session.

“A resolution should clearly name the governments,” he said. “We know that Ethiopian government forces have been major perpetrators of these crimes along with, as you mentioned, the Eritrean forces. It is important to recognize the Eritrean forces did not invade Tigray. They were invited in by the Ethiopian government.”

Violence erupted in Tigray in November when forces of the Tigrayan People’s Liberation front attacked federal military bases in the region. The Ethiopian government responded with the use of military force.

High Commissioner Bachelet also will present a report on police violence and systemic racism against people of African descent. The death of African American George Floyd while in police custody in the United States last year triggered a special council session one year ago.

Roth says he believes the report should have a strong focus on the United States. He adds, however, that systemic racism is a global problem and should be treated as such.

“Our concern is really that the council creates some kind of mechanism to continue this. It is not just a one-off report, but there is a more systematic effort to address root causes and to push for accountability…I do not say that at all to try to minimize the situation in the U.S. The U.S. should be a critical focus of those efforts,” he said.

The council’s last session in February focused on efforts to combat COVID-19-related violations. Bachelet will present a report on how states are responding to the pandemic. COVID-19 also will feature as a sub-theme into reports and panel discussions this session.

Source: Voice of America

NNA – Deputy Prime Minister, Caretaker Minister of Defense and Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants, Zeina Akar, welcomed today the European Union’s Higher Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, along with his accompanying delegation and the European Union’s Ambassador to Lebanon Ralph Tarraf, upon their arrival at Rafic Hariri International Airport.

Akar then held a meeting with Borrell, which included a working lunch in the presence of Ambassador Tarraf; his Office Director Pedro Serrano; Deputy Director of the Department for Africa, the Middle East and the Arabian Peninsula for European External Action Karl Hallegard; Member of the European Commission Office Raphael Dyer; Director of Political Affairs at the Lebanese Foreign Ministry, Ambassador Ghadi Khoury; Director of International Organizations, Ambassador Caroline Ziadeh; Director of Protocols Abeer Ali; and Head of the Europe Department Youssef Jabr.

According to Akar’s office, talks centered on the situation in Lebanon in light of the current stifling conditions and the crisis of the displaced Syrians, in addition to the results of the conference in support of the Lebanese Army, which was held at the invitation of France and with the participation of the International Support Group and the United Nations.

Minister Akar explained to Borrell “the deteriorating economic, social and living situation in Lebanon,” and commended “the role of the European Union and the aid it provides, most notably the aid that arrived after the explosion of the Port of Beirut,” stressing “the importance of supporting Lebanon in all ways and the need to help it with the available means to get out of its crises.”

Source: National News Agency (NNA)

NNA – Caretaker Prime Minister, Hassan Diab, today welcomed at the Grand Serail, Mr. Josep Borrell Fontelles, High Representative of the European Union For Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission (EC), heading a delegation which included: the Head of Delegation of the European Union to Lebanon, Ambassador Ralph Tarraf, Mr. Pedro Serrano, Head of Borrell’s Cabinet, Mr. Carl Hallergard, Deputy Managing Director of North Africa, Middle East, Arab Peninsula, Iraq and Iran at the European External Action Service, Mr. Rafael Daerr, EC Member of Cabinet, Ms. Esther Orsini-Rosenberg, EC Communication Advisor, and Ms. Hannah Severin, Political Officer at the Delegation of the European Union to Lebanon, in the presence of Ministers Raoul Nehme and Ramzi Musharrafieh, as well as PM Advisor for Diplomatic Affairs, Ambassador Gebran Soufan.

Premier Diab briefed the delegation on the difficulties that Lebanon is going through, namely on the financial and economic levels, especially since the delay in forming the government, as a result of political bickering, exacerbates the crises and increases the suffering of the people, hoping to speed up the approval of the draft ration card by the Parliament, which was previously sent by the government with securing its funding sources to support about 750 000 vulnerable families; PM Diab requested the European Union’s assistance in this regard.

Prime Minister Diab also stressed that the key solution to the financial, economic and living crisis lies in the formation of a new government that would resume the negotiations that the current government had started with the International Monetary Fund, and on the basis of the financial recovery plan developed by the government and that needs to be updated first. Diab added that the caretaker government did not fail to fulfill its duties, in accordance with the Constitution, to facilitate citizens’ lives and alleviate their suffering.

The Prime Minister also praised the bilateral relations and partnership between Lebanon and the European Union.

For his part, Borrell affirmed the European Union’s interest in taking stock at the prevailing situation in Lebanon, and examining the various governmental, economic and social challenges and their repercussions at all levels. He also expressed the European Union’s readiness to help Lebanon and its people in overcoming the difficult crises.

Source: National News Agency (NNA)

TAN-TAN, MOROCCO – A senior U.S. general warned Friday that the “wildfire of terrorism” is sweeping across a band of Africa and needs the world’s attention. He spoke at the close of large-scale U.S.-led war games with American, African and European troops.

The African Lion war games, which lasted nearly two weeks, stretched across Morocco, a key U.S, ally, with smaller parts held in Tunisia and Senegal. The annual drills were skipped last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gen. Stephen J. Townsend, head of the U.S. Africa Command, praised the work accomplished in joint operations, and painted a dark picture of threats besetting parts of Africa.

“I am concerned about the security situation across a band of Africa,” from the Sahel region in the west to the Horn of Africa, Townsend told reporters. He noted deadly attacks by al-Qaida- and Islamic State-linked militants and al-Shabab. “All of them are on the march,” he said.

African neighbors are helping governments deal with the threat, but, he added, “all of that does not seem to be sufficient enough to stop what I call … (the) wildfire of terrorism that’s sweeping that region.”

African Lion saw more than 7,000 troops from seven countries and NATO carry out air, land and sea exercises together.

“It has helped our interoperability, our joint capabilities, and provided readiness and a good opportunity to build cohesion across the forces,” said Maj. Gen. Andrew Rohling, commander of the U.S. Army’s Southern European Task Force Africa. He spoke Friday in the desert town of Tan-Tan.

There was a hitch at the start, with Spain withdrawing from the war games, citing budgetary reasons. Press reports attributed the move to Spain’s poor relations with Morocco, a former key partner.

The two countries have been at loggerheads since Spain took in the leader of the Polisario Front independence movement — Morocco’s No.1 enemy — for COVID-19 treatment in a Spanish hospital earlier this year. The Polisario is fighting for independence for the Western Sahara, a vast region that Morocco claims as its own.

During the exercise, Morocco held some airborne operations near the Western Sahara and not far from Polisario refugee camps in Tindouf, in neighboring Algeria.

“Those activities have been perfectly conducted and agreed upon between the two militaries,” Moroccan Brigadier Gen. Mohammed Jamil told The Associated Press.

Townsend, asked whether any action spilled into the disputed Western Sahara, was categoric: “I can confirm it did not.”

The participating countries in African Lion were the U.S., Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal, Italy, The Netherlands and Britain. Observers also attended from countries including Egypt, Qatar, Niger and Mali.

Source: Voice of America

Like many 14-year-old girls, Sifa Maulana had a dream. Hers was to become a nurse.

Her family didn’t support Sifa’s ambitions.

“My grandmother said, ‘If you don’t want to get married, you better leave now.’ I packed my clothes, asked my brother-in-law for 100 meticais” — about $1.60 — “and went to the bus stop,” said Sifa, who faced the ultimatum in May.

Sifa left her home in Mutuali, a village in Mozambique’s northern province of Nampula, and took the bus to Malema town. There, she went to a Catholic church to pray — and confided in nuns there about her situation. She told them her older sister was studying to join a religious order at the Mater Dei Monastery in Nampula town. The nuns at the church confirmed Sifa’s connections and sent the girl to the monastery, where she was welcomed in mid-May.

“We introduced her to other girls here at home,” said Mother Maria, a member of the Contemplative Community of the Servants of Mary. She did not disclose Sifa’s biological sister’s name or make her available for an interview.

Sifa was doing well after roughly a week at the monastery, Mother Maria told VOA Portuguese on May 30. “She helps, she takes care of the babies at the orphanage. But now we need to decide how to get her school records so she can continue her studies.”

The threat of early marriage and disrupted education is all too common, said Mother Maria.

“It is very worrying because there is oppression. Women in general have always been oppressed. Premature marriage is happening a lot,” she said. To lessen their financial strain, families — especially poor families — “want to quickly put children out of the house, taking mouths out of the house.”

The coronavirus pandemic has heightened the risk of child marriage around the world in communities “affected by economic shocks” and with “limited access to basic services such as health, education and child protection,” UNICEF, the United Nations’ children’s agency, reported last year. The U.N. estimates the pandemic could lead to as many as 13 million additional child marriages between 2020 and 2030 that otherwise might have been avoided.

Mozambique already “has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world, affecting almost one in every two girls,” UNICEF reported.

Child marriage not only usually ends schooling for girls but also increases their vulnerability to domestic abuse and violence, UNICEF warns. The practice also endangers girls’ health if they bear children before their bodies are fully mature and if they contract sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS.

In 2019, Mozambique outlawed marriage for anyone younger than 18. But the law is seldom enforced and violations are rarely reported, said Nzira de Deus, executive director of Fórum Mulher Mozambique, a national network of women’s rights organizations.

Several factors complicate the law’s implementation, Deus said.

First, there’s a lack of awareness, and of social acceptance, that girls have the right to freedom of choice, she said. Second, “macho culture camouflaged with harmful social and cultural practices … undermine women’s human rights.”

Finally, according to de Deus, there is “impunity due to the … weak response services to complaints about forced and premature unions.”

Nonetheless, the network urges reporting to authorities any cases of underage marriage that are being planned or have taken place.

For now, Sifa has averted an unwanted early marriage, and Mother Maria said the religious order is committed to helping the girl continue her education: “We must help her going forward so she can be someone in life.”

Source: Voice of America