Fourteen nations, which host more than half of the world's refugees, are paying as much in interest on external debt as it would cost to educate millions of refugee children for nearly five years, according to this new report by Save the Children calling for greater priority to be given …
Natural hazards, civil conflicts, wars and economic crises continue to generate unstable and unsafe conditions, placing immense pressures on communities and local livelihoods. These emergency scenarios often result in people fleeing their homes to other areas or crossing borders to other countries, thereby creating mass refugee situations. Many of these …
Myanmar's government is forcing cyclone victims out of refugee camps and "dumping' them near their devastated villages with virtually no aid supplies, the U.N. said on Friday. Eight camps set up earlier by the government for homeless victims in the Irrawaddy Delta town of Bogale were "totally empty' as the …
The ongoing conflict between India's Maoist rebels and the government across states in the east and centre of the country has displaced thousands of people. Refugees living in camps and settlements face a multitude of health problems.
Johan Von Schreeb, a surgeon who has worked for the group Medicins Sans Frontieres, is a public health scholar with the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden. His recently published PhD thesis enquired into humanitarian health assistance in countries affected by disasters. He tells Vibha Varshney why such assistance has often failed to …
The tussle on the Colombia-Ecuador border over the spraying of herbicide by Colombia has taken a new turn. The spraying, done to eradicate coca plantations, had driven many Colombians to take shelter in Ecuador to avoid being caught in a crossfire between the government's coca eradication efforts
Climate change is likely to create at least a billion refugees by 2050 according to a recent report. The report, Human tide: The real migration crisis, by the European aid agency Christian Aid, said that in future, many people, especially the poor, would be forced to migrate due to water …
Refugee concern: A recent report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Pakistan government says that about 82 per cent of registered Afghan refugees in Pakistan have no intention to return to their homeland in the near future. Security threats in Afghanistan are a major reason for …
Refugees clash For the first time in 16 years, a violent confrontation took place in the third week of February between Bhutanese refugees and villagers in Pathari, 600 km east of Nepal's capital Kathmandu. The clash happened when the latter tried to stop the Bhutanese refugees from taking wood from …
Following illegal logging of mahogany trees across Peru's rainforests, the region's indigenous people , who have no contact with the outside world, are now fleeing their tradition territory and seeking shelter in Brazil along its border with Peru. The Brazilian government tracked them during an aerial inspection of the area. …
With Burundi, a small east African country, emerging from a 13-year-long civil war, more than 400,000 refugees have started returning home. Its newly elected government now faces the daunting task of land allocation, which could plunge the country back into civil war. Burundi experienced a mass exodus in 1972, following …
Cruel punishment: The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Refugee Coordination Unit (RCU) recently stopped food distribution to 3,142 refugees in Bhutans' Jhapa refugee camps. The reason cited was violation of UNHCR rules. Nirmal Raj Khanal, head of RCU's statistics department, pointed out that the refugees had …
Brata Kumar Reang, a farmer from Gachhimpara village of Dashda block in the extremist-dominated Dhalai district of north Tripura has had to barter his son in exchange for just 10 kg of rice. Unable to feed his family, Reang first sold his cattle and when the situation got worse, he …
The repatriation of thousands of Bangladeshi tribal refugees from northeast India is almost complete, officials said. They said 56,520 refugees, including 11,000 families, have returned to the Chittagong hill tracts from camps in Tripura form last March. The remaining, numbering around 4,000, are expected to return soon. The repatriation began …
in order to better understand and deal with the negative environmental impact associated with refugee situations, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees ( unhcr ) has come out with a document titled unhcr Environmental Guidelines . The guidelines are the first of the Commission’s three initiatives to mitigate environmental …
In a momentous judgement last month, the Supreme Court directed the Arunachal Pradesh government to ensure the safety of the Chakma and Hajong tribals in the state and to thwart any move to evict them forcibly from their homes and occupations. The court asked the state government to take the …
THE World Conservation Union (IUCN) is distressed about the way relief agencies like the Red Cross and Christian Action Research and Education are treating the Virunga National Park, Africa's oldest wildlife sanctuary. These agencies are aiding Rwandan refugees camping on the Zaire-Rwanda borders rubbing shoulders with the park. In a …
Intelligence agencies of the Assam government have alleged that the 2,387 sq km Manas Tiger Reserve, listed by the UNESCO as a World Heritage site, has become a sanctuary for about 200 Bodo insurgents. The group is alleged to have taken refuge in the sanctuary after a murderous raid on …
THE IRAQI government's campaign to drain the Howeiza Marsh in the south to flush out Shiite rebels has prompted an exodus: Every day for the past three months, about 25 refugees have fled across the marsh to the Iranian side. Sardiya Ali, a refugee, said, "We can no longer fish …
