POVERTY: SAHEL: Thousands of Touaregs flee into Burkina Faso

OUAGADOUGOU, 10 February 2012 (IRIN)

 Photo: Tugela Ridley/IRIN
A group of Tuareg men in traditional dress silhouetted on the crest of a sand dune at an oasis, west of Timbuktu, Mali

At least 8,000 Touaregs fleeing fighting in neighbouring Mali have found refuge in Burkina Faso, having arrived “in a dire humanitarian condition”, the government said yesterday.
It said it would set up a coordination committee to bring the refugees - currently spread between the western and Sahelian parts of the country - to a centralized location and provide education and sanitation.
“The humanitarian situation is alarming because most of them are sleeping in the open air despite the hospitality of their host,” said Modeste Konkobo, humanitarian officer with the Burkina Faso Red Cross.
“With the current bad weather [harmattan winds] this means looming health problems when added to the precarious food, sanitary and drinking water situation for such a huge group,” Konkobo said.
He said the refugees needed immediate “survival assistance” since they had arrived empty-handed. Other needs included blankets, cooking materials, mats and tents. The Red Cross is deploying some 40 volunteers.
Konkobo said refugees were still arriving in “large numbers” in Inabao and Deou (Oudalan Province), and Mentao (Soum Province). Some 4,000 refugees arrived in the region on 8 February.
“We are afraid this will aggravate the already bad food situation with the deficit we are facing,” said Boureima Yiougo, governor of Sahel Region.

The Touareg
The Touareg are nomads who once controlled ancient caravan routs across the Sahara Desert. They inhabit the Southern regions of North Africa – Algeria, Burkina Faso, Libya, Mali, Niger and Nigeria. Touareg is an Arabic term meaning abandoned by God. However, they call themselves variously Imohag (translated as free men), Kel Tamasheq or Kel Tamajaq. No one knows where they came from or when they arrived in the Sahara. Their true numbers are unknown but estimates vary between 300,000 and 1.5 million.
The government said 146 of the country’s 350 communes had experienced much lower rains this year and could face “famine”, and that it would subsidize cereals to lessen the impact on residents of the region.
The National Commission for Refugees and the local UNHCR office are due to conduct a joint assessment mission in Sahel Region, which borders Mali.
“They urgently need shelter since they caught us by surprise. We have only five tents,” said Hima Barke, a UNHCR official in Soum Province. “Just a week ago there were 40 refugees in the province, now there are 1,127.”

Mali
Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reported on 9 February that at least 30,000 displaced people in Mali were in a dire condition because of fighting in the north of the country since mid-January.
In Aguelhoc (150km northeast of Kidal in northeastern Mali), it said, fierce fighting had forced some 4,000 people to flee their homes. Most had little food and were living in improvised shelters in the semi-desert region. A few have been sheltered by host families.
The ICRC said it and the Mali Red Cross were preparing to distribute millet, rice, oil and salt; as well as tarpaulins, blankets, sleeping mats, buckets, kitchen utensils and hygiene items to the displaced.
“The Mali Red Cross has already made an emergency delivery of food for 600 displaced people whose situation was particularly worrying,” the ICRC said.
In Ménaka, Gao Region, clashes prompted almost 26,000 people to flee their homes in search of safety, both within and outside the town, according to ICRC and Mali Red Cross estimates. The ICRC is also assessing the situation in Tessalit (Kidal Region) and Léré and Niafunké (Timbuktu Region), which have also been affected by fighting in the north of Mali. ICRC quoted “local sources” as saying there could still be 20,000 displaced people in these areas.
The fighting that took place in Ménaka and Andéramboukane also prompted over 15,000 people to seek refuge in Niger, in the northern Tillabéry Region just across the border from Mali.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94829

POVERTY: YEMEN: Fighting in north leads to fresh displacements

HAJJAH, 31 January 2012 (IRIN)
 Photo: Adel Yahya/IRIN

IDPs receive food from villagers after reaching Khairan al-Muharaq District, Hajjah in northern Yemen
Ahmad Hussein Naji, 75, and his wife Taqwa, spent three days in the open after fleeing clashes in Kisher District in Yemen’s northern governorate of Hajjah before eventually finding shelter in a school in the neighbouring district of Khairan al-Muharaq.
“My husband coughs and coughs until he vomits blood… We have no medicine to give him,” Taqwa told IRIN. “It was the hardest trip in my life… We had neither food nor water nor even a blanket to protect ourselves from the cold.”
The elderly couple are among hundreds of families displaced by last week’s clashes between Houthi-led Shia fighters and Sunni Salafi members in Kisher.
Helene Kadi, an emergency coordinator with the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), told IRIN 580 families had been displaced by the fighting. “Over 30 percent of the IDPs [internally displaced persons] have taken shelter in five schools, a worrying trend we have seen with recent displacements in the country… Others have been hosted with families or have no shelter.”
According to Ali Meshaal, a social worker in Kisher, around 230 displaced families - mostly the elderly, women and children - fled to Hajjah Governorate’s Ahim District, while more than 250 families had made it to Khairan al-Muharaq. “The whereabouts of dozens of other displaced families is still unknown,” he told IRIN.
Hajjah Governorate is home to more than 100,000 IDPs displaced by fighting between government troops and Houthi rebels since June 2004, according to a December 2011 report by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

Kind hosts
People from the al-Khamisein area in Khairan al-Muharaq District warmly received several displaced families. “They are sharing their food and water with hundreds of displaced persons who reached their villages. They also freed up schools in the area so they could be used as shelters for the displaced,” he said.
Meshaal appealed to the government and aid organizations to intervene: “The condition of the IDPs is getting much worse due to lack of food and appropriate shelter,” he said.
Ali al-Dubai with local NGO al-Khair Social Charitable Society (ASCS) said more than 2,000 IDPs had been identified and registered for assistance in Hajjah Governorate.
UNICEF, according to Kadi, has distributed 316 hygiene kits and made efforts to raise awareness about hygiene issues among IDPs and the host community. The construction of 12 latrines has been completed and water trucking to IDPs is taking place in the al-Khamisein area. Seven more 1,000 litre tankers are to be deployed and eight emergency latrines will be constructed, and more hygiene kits distributed. Water, sanitation and hygiene assistance is being delivered by UNICEF's partner ASCS, Kadi told IRIN.

Stranded
However, several families are stranded “either on their way to safer areas or inside their homes after many villages in Kisher District became inaccessible and roads unsafe,” said Sheikh Abdullah Dhahban, a member of a recently established tribal mediation committee which is trying to persuade the warring parties to lay down their arms.
“Several dead bodies are still lying in the mountains… None of their relatives have come to collect them for burial,” Dhahban told IRIN.
Local witnesses who preferred anonymity told IRIN on 28 January that Houthi fighters were attempting to tighten their control of a strategic mountain-top position called Abu Dowar, and fighting was also continuing for control of Mishabah hill, which overlooks Suq Ahim (a local market) in Kisher District.
“If Houthis take over this hill it will be easier for them to control the entire district,” one of the witnesses told IRIN.
Waning central government influence due to political turmoil since early last year, has allowed the Houthis to tighten their control of Sa’dah Governorate and push into eastern parts of neighbouring Hajjah Governorate.
“The whole governorate [Sa’dah] is controlled by Houthis. We only have to deal with one party,” said Beatrice Megevand-Roggo, head of operations for the Near and Middle East at the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The fresh displacements are taking place as Yemen prepares for presidential elections scheduled for 21 February.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94763

POVERTY: MIGRATION: The risks of rescue at sea

JOHANNESBURG, 5 December 2011 (IRIN) -

 Photo: Kate Thomas/IRIN
A boat carrying migrants from Libya arrives in Lampedusa

 Two years ago, Abdiselam Sheik Omar left his home town of Jijiga in Ethiopia’s eastern Somali region and embarked on a journey he hoped would take him across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen and eventually to Saudi Arabia. “It’s easy to find work there,” he told IRIN. “The problem is crossing the sea.”
Omar was well aware of the risks and hardships, having made the journey twice before. He knew that during the three- to five-day crossing from Puntland in northern Somalia there would be little to eat or drink, and his smugglers would not hesitate to beat uncooperative passengers or even throw them off the boat.
When the rickety, overloaded boat he was on started sinking, one of the migrants drowned before the remaining 34 were rescued by the Yemeni Coast Guard. The passengers and their smugglers were arrested and jailed on reaching Yemen, but Omar was glad to be alive.
After 20 days he was released and made it as far as the border with Saudi Arabia before being arrested again. This time he was deported back to Ethiopia. “I won’t try it again, even though I’m jobless,” he said.
Every year, thousands of migrants risk hazardous sea crossings in a desperate bid to escape poverty, persecution or conflict. If they run into trouble, as many do, their only hope of being rescued is a long-standing maritime code of conduct backed by numerous international protocols that compel passing ships to render assistance to any vessel in distress.
In the last year alone, cruise ships have picked up Cuban migrants off the coast of Florida, the Indonesian navy has rescued Afghan nationals trying to reach Australia, and Spanish authorities have assisted African refugees and migrants drifting in the Mediterranean.
Many other sinking or capsized vessels were either missed or ignored, and countless migrants have lost their lives at sea. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates that between February and October this year, 2,000 mostly African migrants fleeing the crisis in Libya drowned while trying to cross the Mediterranean. Since the beginning of 2011, a further 131 Somali and Ethiopian refugees and migrants have perished in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden trying to reach Yemen.

Disincentives
The discovery of a small vessel in apparent distress represents a dilemma for ships’ masters, particularly in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, where pirates are most active.
“It’s very difficult to distinguish from a distance whether it’s a boat with migrants or with pirates, so they assume it may be pirates,” said Captain Hartmut Hesse of the International Maritime Organization.
It's very difficult to distinguish from a distance whether it's a boat with migrants or with pirates, so they assume it may be pirates
Current guidance to the shipping industry on the threat of piracy advises ships to keep their distance from small vessels. It does not deal with the possibility that they could be carrying migrants in need of assistance, said John Murray of the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS). "The other big issue is that ships must know that coastal states will meet their obligations in disembarking people rescued at sea."
For ships’ masters everywhere, the biggest disincentive for picking up migrants in distress is the real possibility that they will waste time and money looking for a country willing to let them come ashore.
The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS Convention) and the International Convention on Maritime Sea and Rescue (SAR Convention) both outline the duty of relevant countries to cooperate and coordinate rescue operations at sea, but many are unwilling to accept undocumented migrants.
“They should be offered a place of safety in the closest country from where they were picked up,” said Christopher Horwood, coordinator of the Regional Mixed Migration Secretariat (RMMS), run by the Danish Refugee Council in Nairobi, which provides information and support for migration responses between the Horn of Africa and Yemen. "There are worrying signs that countries are not living up to their responsibilities... some are not even permitting [ships with rescued migrants] to dock."
Whether the ship is a commercial vessel contracted to deliver cargo by a certain date or a military vessel patrolling a coastline, the probability of a delay in disembarking migrants "is likely to undermine some of the commitment to picking people up," said Murray. "That’s the real world; that’s the world we live in."
Most ships these days have small crews and are not equipped to provide food and accommodation to extra passengers for days at a time.

Lack of cooperation
The problem is not new. A decade ago, Australian authorities refused to permit a Norwegian freighter, the MV Tampa, carrying 438 Afghan nationals rescued from a fishing boat drifting in international waters near Christmas Island, to enter Australian waters. The episode sparked a political controversy in Australia and a diplomatic spat between Australia and Norway.
Despite much debate about how future incidents could be avoided and amendments to maritime law, the problems have continued, said Anja Klug, head of the UNHCR asylum/migration unit. “We think the real problem lies in the lack of cooperation among the different states involved in these situations."
At an experts meeting convened by UNHCR in Djibouti recently, Klug and her colleagues presented some practical tools aimed at improving cooperation and burden-sharing of sea rescue operations between states in regions affected by high levels of migration.
One such tool is a model framework that provides for government cooperation in establishing regional task forces to oversee rescue operations, identifying the most appropriate countries for disembarkation, and ensuring that adequate arrangements are in place to receive and process rescued migrants with varying claims to international protection.
"We’re not aiming for this to be adopted on a binding global level," Klug told IRIN. "We want countries to come together and assess their needs. [UNHCR] can facilitate, but ultimately governments need to come to agreements."
At the meeting, UNHCR also proposed that “mobile protection response teams”, staffed by experts from government, UNHCR and other international organizations, be dispatched to countries lacking the resources or capacity to deal with an influx of migrants and asylum seekers arriving by boat.
"Normally, reception arrangements are a task of governments but they sometimes don’t have the capacity," said Klug. UNHCR, together with the International Organization for Migration and other NGOs, are already providing such assistance along the coast of Yemen and on the Italian island of Lampedusa, where large numbers of migrants have come ashore in recent months as a result of the crisis in Libya.

Need for guidance
Another UNHCR document suggests some basic standard operating procedures for ships' masters who encounter migrants in trouble at sea, such as what constitutes a "distress situation" and what information should be sought from rescued persons.
Murray, who attended the Djibouti meeting for the International Chamber of Shipping, said there was a need for such guidance but emphasized that it was not the role of a ship's crew to categorize people. "We feel very strongly there should be no pressure on the ship’s master to engage in any processing or profiling of people who’ve been recovered. As far as the ship is concerned, they’re people in distress at sea," he told IRIN.
Noting that boats rescued at sea often contain a complex mixture of asylum seekers, economic migrants and people with special needs, such as minors, Horwood of RMMS agreed that "It shouldn’t be the burden of a ship captain to decide if he’s got economic migrants or refugees. Many of the migrants don’t qualify for international protection, even though they might be on the same boat as those that do. This is the phenomenon of mixed migration."
Horwood welcomed the UNHCR initiative. "These people are victims of situations [that cause them to migrate] and on top of that they find themselves rejected when they’re genuinely in distress at sea."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94383

MALNUTRITION: Ethopia: The Crisis Continues: Dollo Ado to Open its Fifth Camp

19 November 2011 - 5:01pm By Sam Piranty Share
 
Photo Credit: Sam Piranty Dollo Ado, Ethiopia:

An extremely high level of malnutrition is apparent in Ethiopia's Dollo Ado refugee camps, which continue to expand in response to the on-going crisis in the Horn of Africa.
Malnutrition and overcrowding remain a real cause for concern in Dollo Ado, a collection of refugee camps in south eastern Ethiopia. The four camps at Dollo Ado are already at capacity with a total polulation of 137,000. It is set to open a fifth camp this weekend, Bur Amino. Though yet unpublished, recent results from a survey conducted in both Kobe and Hilaweyn camps have revealed extremely high malnutrition rates that surpass the emergency threshold of 15%. The issue is complicated by the fact that there is actually a good supply of food available. The World Food Programme (WFP), who are facilitating the General Food Distribution in the camps are providing staples such as cereal, pulses, Corn Soya Blend (CSB), oil, salt and sugar with other NGOs supplying further complimentary foods.
With the Ethiopian government and Médecins Sans Frontières treating those diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition, the WFP aims to tackle those with moderate acute malnutrition. If the programme is followed correctly patients can recover within 60-90 days. The fulcrum around which the programme revolves consists of a premix made up of CSB plus, oil and sugar. Every week, this is given to the mother of each household to distribute to their family. It is a vital part of the recovery process and Giorgia Testolin, Head of Refugee Section for the WFP in Ethiopia, believes that with this already available there should not be such widespread malnutrition across the four camps in Dollo Ado and claims ‘there is something wrong at the household level of the consumption of food’. The precise problem is yet to emerge although it has been suggested that it could be do with the sale of some of the provisions refugees receive. Many sell some of the food they receive in order to purchase other food items and commodities both within the camps and the host communities. However, Testolin believes that the premix is not sold and that ‘we expect refugees to sell part of the food to buy what is not in the food basket provided by WFP. Such as milk, meat, tomatoes and vegetables. They cannot have a standard diet every day’.
The problem of malnutrition does not therefore seem to be merely economic but rather manifests itself in a misconception of the nutritional significance of things like the premix and Plumpynut, a peanut based paste. Testolin believes that it is vital the refugee community develop a greater understanding of the importance of the consumption of the premix but suggests that this will take time for ‘it’s a cultural and behavioural change that cannot be reached in a couple of months... If you don't understand that this food is the right food for you, because as a pastoralist you may be used to camel milk and meat and you don't have that food which you believe is the food which will improve the health of your child. It becomes very difficult for the messages [outlining the importance of things like the premix] to pass through to the mothers and fathers...a lot more needs to be done in a community based approach through outreach workers.’ An assessment is due to be undertaken by the WFP, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Administration for Refugees and Returnee Affairs (ARRA) in December this year to try and both pinpoint the problem and develop a more comprehensive solution.
Overcrowding is also a major issue in the camps in Dollo Ado. Over seven thousand refugees are awaiting relocation in the transit centre with the opening of Bur Amino having been delayed for almost a month and the four remaining camps already at full capacity. The delay has been put down to a number of different factors. Previously, when the fourth camp opened early there were numerous problems with sanitation and services. It is therefore vital that because of the recent rains and overcrowding which increase the probability of the spreading of disease, that the fifth camp is completely finished before those in the transit centre move in. Furthermore, the soil around the site is particularly difficult to excavate and with the torrential rainfall taking the airstrip out of service and blocking the roads into the camps, many of the tools needed have been difficult to co-ordinate. However, Bur Amino is due to open this weekend, which will be a welcome relief for thousands of individuals and families. This could not have come at a more important time, in light of the recent intervention in Somalia by the Kenyan military and the tightening of border controls between Kenya and Somalia. Whereas before many refugees have suggested that Al Shabaab had blocked the route to Ethiopia and directed them toward Kenya, now those looking to flee Somalia will focus on reaching Dollo Ado rather than Dadaab.
http://thinkafricapress.com/ethiopia/crisis-continues-dollo-ado-open-its-fifth-camp

MALNUTRITION: Ethiopia: Child Malnutrition Levels High in Ethiopia's Refugee Camps

November 16, 2011: Lisa Schlein



A boy walks by a makeshift shelter for new arrivals at the Dollo Ado refugee transit center in Ethiopia, October 26, 2011 (VOA - P. Heinlein).

The U.N. refugee agency is reporting high levels of malnutrition among young children in Ethiopia’s Dollo Ado camps, which are home to tens of thousands of Somali refugees. The UNHCR says a nutrition survey at the Kobe and Hilaweyn camps found Somali refugee children under age five in a critical state.
International attention to the crisis in the Horn of Africa seems to have peaked. But, according to the United Nations, the crisis itself is still going strong. It says more than 12 million people continue to be affected by the worst drought to hit the region in 60 years. Of those, people in Somalia, who are suffering from both famine and conflict, are hit the hardest.
UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic says the number of Somalis seeking refuge in Ethiopia and Kenya has tapered off recently. But much of this, he says, is due to the fighting and the heavy rains in southern Somalia, which are making it difficult for people to move.
Nonetheless, he says between 170 and 200 people a day are arriving in both Kenya and Ethiopia.
"The problem is that the people who are arriving now are again very exhausted and in extremely dire condition. The sad evidence of that are their stories, of their basically losing the most vulnerable, the youngest among them en route to either Kenya or to Ethiopia," Mahecic said.
While only the strongest children make it alive to the refugee camps, the nutrition survey at the Kobe and Hilaweyn camps confirms the desperate state in which they arrive.
Mahecic says health and nutrition programs have been set up to treat severely malnourished children, especially the youngest. But the survey, he says, confirms that progress in bringing these children back to good health is slow.
"However, the number of deaths among the children under five has decreased dramatically compared to the very high level seen at the height of the refugee influx this summer. This reflects improved access to quality health care and nutrition services, as well as improved water and sanitation facilities. We are leading the coordination of a nutrition response to the survey’s findings," Mahecic said.
He says bad weather conditions are hampering the provision of aid. Mahecic adds that intermittent downpours in Dollo Ado are causing flash floods in the area. He says floods hit the local airstrip in the past four days, putting it out of service. As a consequence, relief supplies cannot be flown in.
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/east/Child-Malnutrition-Levels-High-in-Dollo-Ado-Refugee-Camps-133959663.html

POVERTY: KENYA-SOMALIA: Red tape adds to refugee woes in Dadaab

DADAAB, 26 July 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: Tom Maruko/IRIN

Somali refugees await registration at Dadaab

 After walking for days to escape drought and insecurity, often barefoot and with almost no food or water, Somali refugees who arrive at Dadaab camps in northern Kenya are met with delays and red tape.

Some wait up to two weeks to be registered as refugees, and longer to get food and shelter.
The sluggish pace of the registration process is partly because refugees may only register and receive ration cards at Ifo camp, at the centre of the three Dadaab camps set up to 10km apart.
Abdifatah Ahmed, chairman of the Dagahaley camp, told IRIN: "We request the [UN Refugee Agency] UNHCR to issue the ration cards in all the three camps as soon as possible to ease the pressure and immediately facilitate the distribution of food rations to the new arrivals."
The agency tries to register 1,000 refugees a day, out of the approximately 1,300 new arrivals, but they are limited by the number that Kenya's Department of Refugee Affairs (DRA) is able to process.
"We are sort of at their mercy,” said a UNHCR employee who declined to be named. The official said the DRA was working to increase its capacity to process new arrivals.
Often, they do not know what to do if they lose their ration cards, or who to contact to report cases of sexual and gender-based violence
At the start of registration, refugees are fingerprinted and photographed at Ifo camp to ensure they have not already been registered.
The UNHCR employee said many refugees tried to register more than once in an effort to get more food and assistance, but most were tripped up by a series of questions on family names and relationships.
Even after registering and receiving a ration card, some refugees wait for weeks to gain access to the food distribution that normally takes place twice a month as their data is transferred to the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and CARE, the agencies facilitating the general food distribution.
To speed up the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the new arrivals, reception centres were established across the three camps on 6 June, where new arrivals can access dry food rations for two weeks. They also receive non-food items like kitchen utensils and plastic sheets, and medical screenings where the malnourished are referred to hospital for feeding and stabilization.
Refugees who arrived in the 1990s, backed by the escalating emergency response of humanitarian aid workers and other external supporters, are filling some of the gaps as well. Community leaders in Dadaab camps have facilitated massive contribution drives of non-food items, food rations and some money from as far away as Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, and the coastal town of Mombasa, for the new arrivals.
But new refugees are hampered by poor access to information, such as where and when to look for general food distribution. Often, they do not know what to do if they lose their ration cards, or who to contact to report cases of sexual and gender-based violence. Many have no idea of the various services offered by the more than 20 aid agencies operating in the camps.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93332

MALNUTRITION: Somalia: It is the worst drought in 60 years, and still thousands of starving people arrive at camps intended for half as many

 Emily Dugan : 24 July 2011

 AFP/ GETTY IMAGES

Women rushing for a feeding centre after passing soldiers of the Transitional Federal Government (TGF) who try to contain the crowd at Badbaado

The blue plastic band around Shamsa Samow Mohammed's wrist resembles the passes worn by countless teenagers at music festivals. But for her, and her family, it is nothing less than a ticket to survival.
The mother of six walked with her husband and children for 17 days through the desert after the family's crops failed at their home in Dinsoor, a town in Somalia.
Yesterday, she arrived at a UNHCR reception centre on the outskirts of Ifo, one of three major refugee camps at Dadaab, in northern Kenya.
After queuing for hours in the heat, each family is given a numbered and colour-coded band and told to wait. When the number on Shamsa's wristband is called out, the family will be given enough supplies to create a makeshift home, including a tarpaulin, cooking utensils, a mat to sleep on and some maize flour.
Breast-feeding a wide-eyed baby and with several of her younger children leaning on her for support, the 30-year-old described their journey: "We had no food and no water while we walked. It was so hard going through the desert, but we had no choice. We were farmers but the land could not be cultivated with no water. I thought we were all going to die of starvation if we stayed."
Southern Somalia is one of the worst-hit regions in a drought that has worked its way across the Horn of Africa. While many countries in the region, including Kenya, have been affected by the lack of rain, in Somalia the problem has been exacerbated by persistent conflict between the Islamist al-Shabab group and government forces.
The United Nations says nearly four million people face starvation in Somalia alone. In all, it is estimated that some 12 million East Africans have been affected by the drought, which some have called the worst in 60 years. Since the crisis began, hundreds of thousands have travelled to Dadaab, now the world's largest refugee camp.
Unfortunately, Dadaab itself is also showing signs of drought. The parched land is full of dust whipped up by warm winds, and the ground is cracked and dry.
As Shamsa talks about her family's story of survival, her husband, Ibrahim, leaps up in a sudden burst of energy. Their number had been called. As he struggles back from the centre with a large bag of maize, his wife says: "I think we will be alive now." She is smiling for the first time.
But the family's future may not yet be as secure as they hope. Until they are officially registered at the camp's centre – which will take their names, photos and fingerprints – they will not have the ration cards that give them reliable access to food. Because of a major backlog, the number left unregistered is expected to reach 30,000 this week, meaning that those arriving in the camps now are unlikely to get a reliable supply of food until the middle of September.
Magdalen Nandawula, Oxfam's programme manager at Dadaab, said the speed and scale of the influx over the past two months has left services, designed for fewer than half this number of people, seriously stretched. "Last year we were receiving 10,000 people in a month. Now since June alone we've received more than 57,000 people. This means congestion in existing camps, and many are forced to live outside the camps where there is no infrastructure at all: no latrines, structures or water."
The EU Commissioner responsible for Humanitarian Aid & Crisis Response promised yesterday to do all that is possible to support those struggling from extreme drought across the Horn of Africa, pledging to boost aid by €27.8m (£24m).
"We commit to do as much as we can," Kristalina Georgieva said, speaking during a visit to Dadaab. "We really appreciate what the Kenyan government and people are doing. We have a responsibility to share."
The Kenyan government has said it is overwhelmed by the flood of refugees, including those fleeing the parts of southern Somalia that the UN declared on Wednesday were suffering from famine. Relief efforts inside southern Somalia continue to be hampered by the refusal of the al-Qa'ida-inspired al-Shabab – who control both areas declared by the UN to be famine-struck – to lift an aid ban on several foreign aid groups.
The new EU funding comes on top of almost €70m Europe has already contributed to assist those suffering the worst regional drought in decades affecting Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Djibouti and Uganda.
Many of the families in Dadaab are travelling without the men, who have been left behind to protect their land. Mohammed Ajan Ibrahim, 35, is the exception. He arrived with his four children in a truck yesterday morning, having left his wife at the Somali border to bring their one remaining possession: a donkey and cart.
"We couldn't leave the donkey and cart. I think it will take her a day to get here and then I hope to find her in a town nearby." But with more than 380,000 people now in the camps and the surrounding area he may struggle to find her.
More than 50,000 people are now living in scattered shelters outside the camps. Aid agencies have been putting in water tanks to these new makeshift camps, but they are struggling to keep up with demand.
While families make homes in the wilderness with no running water, a brand new facility with brick buildings, water, taps and electricity lies unopened, following a political dispute within the Kenyan government.
The camp, called Ifo II, has been ready to house 40,000 refugees since last year, but sources say the government is afraid that opening such a state-of-the-art facility will attract even more refugees. Kenya says that it cannot be opened for "security reasons".
Earlier this month the Kenyan Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, assured the international community that "the camp is now open to cover for the increasing influx of the fleeing refugees", saying that residents would settle in within 10 days. Today, however, it is 10 days since he made that pledge and still the camp lies empty.
Just a few miles up the road, people are sleeping under hastily assembled twigs and scraps of fabric. Some have been forced to make camps on flood plains, and risk their homes being washed away when the rainy season comes.
Yet, at Ifo II, there are houses, pristine latrines, water taps, five primary schools and a secondary school – all going unused.
The schools are of particular concern to Unicef, which says education rates at those arriving at the camp have plummeted. Just five years ago, more than 70 per cent of the school-age children arriving had some form of education. Now the number is roughly 35 per cent, thanks to the worsening of Somalia's infrastructure.
For most families arriving now, however, education is the least of their concerns. Child malnutrition rates have soared in Dadaab, with health centres full of skeletal children.
At a hospital outside Ifo I, which is run by the German charity GIZ, tiny infants resembling bundles of bones lie listlessly on beds, watched over by their frightened mothers.
Malnutrition was already a problem at the camp and is only being made worse by the new arrivals. Fatima Gedi, 24, has lived in the camp since 1992, but limited access to food has left her one-year-old son, Mubarek, starving.
"My son started off with diarrhoea, coughing and vomiting and now they say he is malnourished. They say there are no drugs for him. The services provided at the camps used to be fine, but now it's much harder to get help."
Dr Hamza Sheikh, who works on the hospital's malnutrition wards, says: "The number of children under five with malnutrition is rising all the time. It is still a problem in the camp, but the main problem is new arrivals. Around 30 per cent of children under five now arrive malnourished."
Rashma Kule, 18, tries desperately to feed a mug of milk to her two-year-old daughter, Arfon Omar, in the hospital's stabilisation centre. Arfon's shoulders are so narrow that her dress hangs straight down from her neck and her limbs hang like twigs. She looks half her age, lying motionless with breathing tubes up her nose.
"I arrived two months ago from Bardere with my husband and two children. Arfon has been getting treatment for seven days now. We had eight herds of sheep and goats in Somalia, but now it is all gone.
"We were so scared on the journey; it took us 15 days to walk. But we had to come here, if we'd stayed we would have died."
Next to the bed are Rashma's flip-flops. A novelty from a New Year gone by, they read "Happy 2010". It is doubtful that 2010 was a happy one for the Kule family, and, with another child still sick back at the camp, it is unlikely that 2011 will be much better.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/a-moment-of-joy-inside-the-worlds-largest-refugee-camp-2319561.html

MANUTRITION: Ivory Coast: Ivorian infighting forces UN refugee relocation

TAMBA JEAN-MATTHEW : July 14 2011
A UNHCR statement this week quoted refugees expressing fear for their lives due to fighting among armed rival gangs and which is affecting the distribution of relief aid.
An estimated 2,000 refugees are affected by the relocation from transit centres and villages along the Liberian border with Cote d’Ivoire.
The armed gangs are divided between supporters of President Alassane Ouattara and those of the ousted former leader, Laurent Gbagbo.
The fighting has prevented the regular supply of relief aid by UNHCR to hundreds of Ivorian refugees resulting in instances of starvation and malnourishment.
Mr Jerry Bahgou, a medical officer at the Yorpea Clinic in Liberia’s north-eastern Nimba County, says the rate of malnutrition among children is high and that dozens are being referred to hospitals in the area.
About half of the 100,000 Ivorian refugees reside in border towns and villages in Nimba County
http://www.africareview.com/News/Ivorian+gangs+force+UN+refugee+relocation/-/979180/1201196/-/7yfdgwz/-/

MALNUTRITION: SOMALIA: Time for immediate action on famine - UN

MOGADISHU/NAIROBI, 20 July 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: Mohamed Amin Jibril/IRIN

Thousands displaced by the drought are seeking shelter in Mogadishu

The humanitarian crisis in Somalia has degenerated into a famine in two regions and could get worse because respite from drought, a major cause of the crisis, which is compounded by insecurity, lack of aid and food price inflation, is unlikely until December or January 2012, the UN warned.

"We still do not have all the resources for food, clean water, shelter and health services to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Somalis in desperate need," Mark Bowden, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, said.
Immediate action was required to avoid famine spreading to all eight regions of southern Somalia. “Every day of delay is literally a matter of life or death for children and their families in the famine-affected areas," Bowden told a news conference in Nairobi on 20 July.
“This is a time for exceptional actions” in terms of the speed at which aid is delivered, and the conditions under which donors should be willing to give, he added.
With malnutrition rates topping 50 percent in some districts, the UN announced that famine had hit Lower Shabelle and southern Bakool regions. A recent assessment, Bowden said, highlighted “the shocking severity of the crisis”, confirming that the rest of Somalia was "close to famine conditions".
According to the Integrated Phase Classification's five-point scale, a famine is declared when at least 20 percent of households face extreme food shortages with limited ability to cope, the prevalence of global acute malnutrition exceeds 30 percent and crude death rates exceed two deaths per 10,000 people per day.
But naming a food crisis a famine does not legally require action in the way that announcing a genocide would, despite the politicization of the term and the gravity of the label.
"Morally speaking, famine is a term that must elicit moral indignation," said Bruno Geddo, a representative of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). “Emotionally, it should push people to do more."
World Food Programme (WFP) executive director, Josette Sheeran, said: "WFP saw this emergency coming... It is now vital that the coalition of international action - involving United Nations agencies, governments, non-governmental organizations and regional organizations - quickly receive generous support and donations required to make a difference.”
Recently, Al Shabab militia, which control parts of Somalia, requested international food assistance. The inability of agencies to work in the region since early 2010 had prevented aid from reaching the very hungry, especially children, contributing to the crisis.

Mounting death toll
"Some 11,000 people have died due to drought in the past 45 days, 9,000 of them in the Bay, Bakool and Lower Shabelle regions, the rest in other regions in south-central Somalia," Abdikadir Hirsi Shekhdon, a member of the government drought committee, said in Mogadishu.
“The government and the public are helping the vulnerable people," he added. "For example, the president has distributed 1,000 tents, 1,000 blankets and 1,000 mats to some of the displaced in Mogadishu."
But with nearly half of the Somali population - 3.7 million people - in crisis, of whom an estimated 2.8 million people are in the south, the scale of the crisis is huge.
“Today the world’s attention is on my country but I ask the world to address the fundamental causes of this humanitarian catastrophe and urgently ask for the resources needed to rebuild the Somali state in the midst of an ongoing conflict," Somali Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali said. “This is going to get worse for the Somali people, before it gets better.”
The crisis has forced thousands of Somalis to seek refuge in the capital, Mogadishu.

 Photo: Mohamed Amin Jibril/IRIN

Farhiya Ahmed holds one of her two surviving children

“After two years of consecutive drought and the death of all our livestock, I decided to head for Mogadishu in the hope of saving my children,” Farhiya Osman Ahmed, 28, said. "Upon reaching the city, my children fell ill," she told IRIN. "I don't know what disease they were suffering from. Three of them died and the fourth one is still sick; his condition has worsened in the past two weeks."

Warning signs
The humanitarian community has stepped up its response to the crisis, some by setting up cash-for-work or cash relief activities and distributing food. Action Contre la Faim, for example, is airlifting tons of food into Somalia, and UNHCR has added oral rehydration salts, high protein biscuits and water purification tablets to its emergency kits, items not usually included.
"So far donors have committed less than US$200 million, leaving an $800 million black hole,” Oxfam GB said in reference to humanitarian funding needs for the Horn of Africa before the famine announcement.
Help is still months away, yet warning signs were being reported a year ago by the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) and the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit.
According to Chris Hillbruner, a decision and planning support adviser for FEWS NET, this crisis showed that relatively good and accurate information could be provided well in advance but “there’s a lot of room globally for response to connect to early warning in a stronger way.”
Bowden told IRIN that although the early warning information and analysis was exceptional, it had not translated into prevention. "In Somalia, there is a mismatch between warning and response,” he said. “We must listen to our early warning systems and safeguard the impartiality of our humanitarian responses.”
Fran Equiza, Oxfam's regional director, called for quick global action to avoid a repeat of such crises.
"Emergency aid is vital right now, but we also need to ask why this has happened, and how we can stop it ever happening again," she said.
"The warning signs have been seen for months, and the world has been slow to act. Much greater long-term investment is needed in food production and basic development to help people cope with poor rains and ensure that this is the last famine in the region."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93280

MALNUTRITION: Somalia: 100 children die in Somalia daily

Abdi Hajji Hussein :  July 9, 2011

Some 100 children die of malnutrition in Somalia every day while 60,000 people are displaced inside the Horn of African nation daily, an official of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Friday.
Abdi Yusuf Nur, an official from OCHA’s office of information, said in an interview with state-run Radio Mogadishu the drought situation is worsening day after day and has reached a very serious point.
“I am requesting local charity organizations who are involved in helping drought-hit people, Somali government and its people to work with international aid agencies and exchange drought-related information in a bid to facilitate helping those who are in dire need for emergency humanitarian aid,” Nur said.
He admitted that there are delays in humanitarian services, saying that the United Nations relief organization didn’t receive the needed funding to tackle this “unfolding drought catastrophe.”
Nonetheless, the official noted the aid agencies will begin providing assistance in Somalia as soon as possible.
Recently, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees launched an urgent appeal, telling the international media that a “human tragedy of unimaginable proportions” is about to unfold if more help is not provided.
Because of an extreme drought ravaging civil war-torn Somalia, as much as a quarter of the country’s population is now displaced or on the move, walking hundreds of miles to refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya.
The UN comments come as Mogadishu overflows with hundred of families who have been displaced from the southern Somalia region that is tightly controlled by the extremist militants of al Shabaab.
On Monday, at least 10 toddlers died of hunger and malnutrition in Mogadishu.
 http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/90053808?UN%20official%3A%20100%20children%20die%20in%20Somalia%20daily#ixzz1SOItoMEG

Somalia drought: UN aid for camps under Islamists

17 July 2011 Martin Plaut

 Somalis are seeking aid in Kenya and Ethiopia, as well as in camps inside Somalia Continue reading the main story

The UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator for Somalia, Mark Bowden, says aid is being provided to camps controlled by the Islamist group al-Shabab.
Mr Bowden told the BBC that aid was being given through al-Shabab's drought committees, which run the camps.
Mr Bowden said this could be done as long as the aid was delivered according to humanitarian principles.
He described the situation as so severe that it was vital to scale up aid operations inside Somalia.
The UN's refugee agency estimates that nearly one-and-a-half million Somalis have been forced from their homes but remain in the country.
But until very recently helping them has been very difficult indeed.
Al-Shabab, which rules over large swathes of south and central Somalia, had imposed a ban on foreign aid agencies in its territories two years ago, accusing them of being anti-Muslim.
It lifted the ban 10 days ago as long as groups had "no hidden agenda".

'Humanitarian principles'
Mark Bowden said that aid was being delivered to camps run by committees under the supervision of al-Shabab, despite the movement's known allegiance to al-Qaeda.
But he made it clear that this could only proceed as long as humanitarian aid was delivered free of any political connotations.
"The Shabab have, as I understand it, through their drought committees been distributing assistance to vulnerable groups of the population, so they have taken an interest and expressed concern.
"It is of course important to also recognise that the work that we do in these areas will be conducted under humanitarian principles and based on need and without any political association attached to the assistance," said Mr Bowden.



On Wednesday the UN has made its first aid delivery to drought victims in areas of Somalia controlled by the militants, since they lifted an aid ban.
UN children's organisation Unicef said al-Shabab had given UN workers unhindered access and hoped this would encourage other agencies.

'Close to famine'
Unicef airlifted food and medicine to malnourished children to the central town of Baidoa, more than 200km (about 125 miles) north-west of the capital, Mogadishu.
Extended drought is causing a severe food crisis in the Horn of Africa, which includes Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia. Weather conditions over the Pacific means the rains have failed for two seasons and are unlikely to return until September.
Food shortages are affecting up to 12 million people. The UN has not declared a famine but large areas of the region are now classified as in crisis or emergency, with malnutrition affecting up to 35-40% of children under five.
The humanitarian problem is made worse by ongoing conflicts, which means that until July militant groups had only allowed aid organisations limited access to large parts of southern Somalia and eastern Ethiopia.
Since the beginning of 2011, around 15,000 Somalis each month have fled into refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia looking for food and water. The refugee camp at Dadaab, in Kenya, has been overwhelmed by 370,000 people.
Farmers unable to meet their basic food costs are abandoning their herds. High cereal and fuel prices had already forced them to sell many animals before the drought and their smaller herds are now unprofitable or dying.
The refugee problem may have been preventable. However, violent conflict in the region has deterred international investment in long-term development programmes, which may have reduced the effects of the drought.
Development aid would focus on reducing deforestation, topsoil erosion and overgrazing and improving water conservation. New roads and infrastructure for markets would help farmers increase their profits.
The result of climate conditions, conflict and lack of investment is that 6.7 million people in Kenya and Ethiopia are currently existing on food rations, and relief agencies estimate 2.6 million in Somalia will need assistance a new emergency operation.


The Unicef representative for Somalia, Rozanne Chorlton, said al-Shabab had assured the agency it could operate without undue interference.
"They gave assurances that our access for humanitarian purposes would be unhindered and that we would be able to reach the people who need support most," Ms Chorlton told the BBC.
Unicef paid no fees to al-Shabab, and that the success of the mission meant it would be repeated in the near future, she added.
She warned the situation was close to famine.
On Sunday the first in a series of UN refugee agency emergency flights arrived in Nairobi with 100 tonnes of tents.
The cargo was immediately off-loaded for transport by road convoy early in the week to the sprawling Dadaab refugee camp complex near the Kenya-Somalia border.
The flight was the first of five scheduled for Nairobi on alternate days this week from the UNHCR regional stockpile in Dubai.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14178953

MALNUTRITION: ETHIOPIA: Floods pose new threat to food security

ADDIS ABABA, 14 July 2011 (IRIN)
 Photo: Ben Parker/IRIN
Expected flooding between August and September could exacerbate food insecurity for up to 4.5 million Ethiopians (file photo)

While the ongoing drought has seriously undermined the food security of up to 4.5 million people in Ethiopia, a threat posed by expected flooding during the second half of 2011 could exacerbate the situation, say meteorological officials.
Ethiopia's meteorological agency has forecast normal to above-normal rainfall during the June-September rainy season, with the risk of flooding in western, northwestern and central areas. Areas around Lake Tana in Amhara region, parts of Gambella and along the Awash basin in Afar region are likely to be affected by floods.
"Parts of these areas, particularly in low-lying [areas] and near riverbanks, could face flooding as we usually anticipate in this season," said Diriba Koricha, the director of Forecast and Early Warning Department at the agency.
However, "as the season progresses in August and September, swift but heavy rainfalls could result in flooding anywhere", he said, adding that further preparation was needed to prevent any humanitarian crisis.
Launching an appeal on 11 July for drought aid, Ethiopia's Agriculture Ministry said the country's food security situation had deteriorated since the beginning of the year to the La Niña-induced drought currently ravaging parts of the country.
The country requires US$398 million for food and non-food aid between July and December 2011.
The government made the appeal as humanitarian actors reported funding shortfalls.
Judith Schuler, World Food Programme (WFP) Ethiopia spokeswoman, said many of its food assistance activities in Ethiopia "face significant funding shortfalls".
WFP has a shortfall of 120,000MT of food, equivalent to about $112 million, until the end of the year.
"Due to this lack of funding, WFP reduced food rations in relief operations in certain areas of the country from March onwards," said Schuler.
A recent report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Ethiopia indicated that food rations had been allocated without vegetable oil and with a reduced amount of corn-soya blend.
Schuler said: "In order to resume full rations for all people badly hit by the drought, new contributions are urgently needed. Compounding the issue is time: from the moment a contribution is confirmed, it takes between four to five months until the food arrives in the country."
Between January and June, WFP assisted 269,300 moderately malnourished Ethiopian children under five through the targeted supplementary food (TSF) programme for malnourished children under five and pregnant and nursing mothers.

 Photo: Jane Some/IRIN Ethiopia's food security has deteriorated since the beginning of the year due to drought (file photo)

Somali refugees
The food needs are not just limited to Ethiopians; an influx of refugees from Somalia to Ethiopia has also been recorded.
"Numbers are increasing on a daily basis, and the nutritional status of the refugees upon... arrival is worrying," said Schuler, adding that a March/April survey had found malnutrition rates of 45 percent among newly arrived children under five at a camp in Dolo Ado, at the border between Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia.
At least 55,000 new Somali refugees have been recorded in Ethiopia since January, according to the UN. The UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, has set up a new camp to help them.
Eastern Africa is experiencing what the UN has described as the most severe food crisis in the world today.
On 4 July, international charity Oxfam GB made a £50 million ($80 million) appeal for drought-hit eastern Africa, saying at least 12 million people had been pushed "into a fight for survival".
"The aid effort faces enormous hurdles; there is not enough money to buy food in the quantities required and the price of maize has risen by up to 40 percent since a year ago in the region," Jane Cocking, Oxfam's humanitarian director, said. "The cost of fuel needed to transport food to the epicentre has also shot up."
On 1 July, the NGO, Christian Aid, also launched an emergency humanitarian appeal to help provide water, food and animal feed in the region.
"People are desperate and if we don't act now we could be looking at one of the worst humanitarian situations the world has seen in a long time," warned Nick Guttmann, Christian Aid's humanitarian director.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93225

MALNUTRITION: African drought pushes Kenya and Somalia into pre-famine conditions

Reuters in Geneva guardian.co.uk, 28 June 2011

Africa drought pushes Kenya and Somalia into pre-famine conditions
UN says that more than 10 million people are affected in areas of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda


 A displaced Somali woman awaits humanitarian assistance from local residents in southern Mogadishu, Somalia. Photograph: Mustafa Abdi/AFP/Getty Images

The worst drought in 60 years in the Horn of Africa has sparked a severe food crisis and high malnutrition rates, with parts of Kenya and Somalia experiencing pre-famine conditions, the United Nations has said.
More than 10 million people are now affected in drought-stricken areas of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda and the situation is deteriorating, it said.
"Two consecutive poor rainy seasons have resulted in one of the driest years since 1950/51 in many pastoral zones," the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs told a media briefing. "There is no likelihood of improvement until 2012".
Food prices have risen substantially in the region, pushing many moderately poor households over the edge.
A UN map of food security in the eastern Horn of Africa shows large swathes of central Kenya and Somalia in the emergency category, one phase before what the UN classifies as catastrophe/famine – the fifth and worst category.
Child malnutrition rates in the worst affected areas are more than double the emergency threshold of 15 per cent and are expected to rise further. High mortality rates among children are also reported.
Drought and fighting are driving ever greater numbers of Somalis from their homeland, with more than 20,000 arriving in Kenya in just the past two weeks, the UN refuge agency UNHCR said on Friday. It voiced alarm at the dramatic rise, noting the average monthly outflow had been about 10,000 so far this year.
Almost half the Somali children arriving in refugee camps in Ethiopia are malnourished, and those arriving in Kenya are little better, Byrs said.
UN humanitarian appeals for Somalia and Kenya, each about $525m, are barely 50 per cent funded, while a $30m appeal for Djibouti is just 30 per cent funded, she said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/28/africa-drought-kenya-somalia-famine

POVERTY: Afghanistan: Conflicts, poverty suspend Afghan refugees' return to home

2011-06-20 : Farid Behboud, Zhang Jianhua

KABUL, June 20 (Xinhua) -- Continued Taliban-led insurgency, insecurity incidents, high rate of unemployment and poverty have been main obstacle to delay the return of over six million Afghan refugees from neighboring states.
"Almost all Afghan refugees living in neighboring country of Iran prefer to return home country, but they were forced to stay abroad due to continued war, insecurity and high rate of unemployment in Afghanistan," Allah Yar, 60, who returned from Iran nearly three years ago, told Xinhua.
He made this comment on Sunday, a day before of the World Refugee Day which falls on June 20.
Living in a mud house in Barik Ab area, a suburban of Kabul, the bearded Yar complained that the returned refugees used to live in the community have no electricity and potable water.
"I have been living in this shelter provided by government and foreign aid agencies but potable water, electricity, health services are not available and the living conditions are getting worse and worse," Yar said.
"If the situation continues to deteriorate, I have no choice but to move again to Iran," Yar, the father of six, said.
Running a private bakery, Yar complained that the income is not enough to feed the family properly.
More than six million Afghans are still living as refugees abroad with vast majority of them in the immediate neighboring Iran and Pakistan, spokesman for the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation Islamudin Jurhat said to Xinhua on Sunday.
According to Juraht, a total of 5.6 million Afghan refugees have returned home since the collapse of Taliban regime in late 2001. However, continued insecurity has forced many to move again.
"Then as now, the major cause of displacement is war. Prolonged conflicts and instability in places such as Somalia, Iraq or Afghanistan, and unfolding crises in North Africa and the Middle East, are among the contributors to the current world population of almost 44 million forcibly displaced people," UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in his message on World Refugee Day.
"For UNHCR, the operational environment is one in which the protection of civilians remains a major issue, but deep poverty continues as the biggest threat to life and progress. With Afghanistan's capacity to absorb returnees stretched to its limits, achieving sustainable return and reintegration is becoming ever more difficult," the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said in its official website.
Even though, Afghans are still suffering of endemic war and poverty, and the living condition is pitiful, many returnees have to stay in their war-ravaged homeland.
"Even living here in Afghanistan is very difficult, I prefer to stay in my country than to be a refugee in other countries," an Afghan girl Nasiba who returned from Iran eight years ago said.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/indepth/2011-06/20/c_13940237.htm

POVERTY: MOZAMBIQUE: North overwhelmed by asylum seekers

JOHANNESBURG, 12 May 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: Manoocher Deghati/IRIN
Somali refugees at a camp in northeastern Kenya (file photo)

Thousands of frustrated Ethiopian and Somali asylum seekers trying to make their way to South Africa have been marooned in overcrowded camps in northern Mozambique since the government introduced measures limiting their movements.
The Maratane Refugee Camp in Nampula Province, which normally accommodates around 5,500 long-term residents from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Rwanda, now has a population of over 10,000, while an additional 1,000 asylum seekers are staying at a temporary site in the coastal town of Palma, near the border with Tanzania.
"We did our best to expand facilities - building additional shelters, [drilling] boreholes, and by procuring food and non-food items, but given the sheer volume of the numbers, we're obviously overwhelmed," said Girma Gebre-Kristos, country representative of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Mozambique.
A steady stream of Ethiopians and Somalis started arriving in Mozambique in 2010, mostly by boat, but as long as the number of new arrivals at the Maratane Camp roughly equalled the number of departures, authorities were able to cope, Gebre-Kristos told IRIN.
However, this changed unexpectedly at the beginning of 2011, when the number of new arrivals increased significantly and the government of Mozambique put in place strict measures controlling the movements of asylum seekers outside the camp.
Gebre-Kristos said groups of Somalis and Ethiopians making their way south towards the border with South Africa had been picked up by police and returned to Maratane.
Aderito Matangala, acting head of the National Institute for Refugee Assistance (INAR), the local government counterpart of UNHCR, explained that while the law in Mozambique allowed asylum seekers freedom of movement, they first had to complete a registration process at the camp, which took three months.
"The existing law gives [asylum seekers] freedom of movement even before being granted refugee status," Matangala told IRIN, and many Somali and Ethiopian asylum seekers chose to come to Mozambique because of its reputation for treating refugees well.
We did our best to expand facilities...but given the sheer volume of the numbers, we're obviously overwhelmed
"My personal view is that not all of them want to go to South Africa," he said, noting that some of the new arrivals were economic migrants rather than genuine asylum seekers.
Reports in recent weeks that the local police commander in Palma had deported about 150 Somali and Ethiopian asylum seekers to Tanzania, and that four Somali asylum-seekers were shot dead by border police on 29 April in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique’s most northerly province, suggest that police and immigration officials are not always aware of their country's obligations to asylum seekers. The government is investigating the shooting and the deportations.
UNHCR and INAR are appealing for help to deal with the food, shelter, water and sanitation needs of the new arrivals in Maratane and Palma. So far the World Food Programme and the Mozambique Red Cross have stepped in with contributions of tents and food.
However, the situation in Palma remains dire. The camp is located next to a swampy, mosquito-infested area with no potable water, but Gebre-Kristos said an alternative location had been identified and would be ready soon.
Besides a lack of infrastructure, the Maratane Camp is struggling to balance the needs of the new arrivals with those of more established residents from the Great Lakes region, many of whom are involved in self-reliance projects and no longer need food assistance.
By contrast, said Gebre-Kristos, the newer residents were often "frustrated and angry young men who think their journey to South Africa has been interrupted".
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=92690

POVERTY: SRI LANKA: Does cash for work - work?

 Photo: Amantha Perera/IRIN
Destroyed infrastructure in Sri Lanka's north becomes a source of jobs

COLOMBO, 11 March 2011 (IRIN) - As the Sri Lankan government launches a cash-for-work programme in areas hit by recent flooding, following similar schemes in the former conflict areas in the north, experts warn of potential pitfalls of such schemes.
The new programme will be operating in 12 northern and eastern districts devastated by flooding in January and February, which affected more than two million and displaced close to 700,000, according to the government.
Regional government officials have been instructed to employ those affected by flooding to rebuild rural roads, minor irrigation tanks and channels. Participants are to be paid about US$4 daily for up to four days a week.
More than $3 million has been allocated by the Ministry of Economic Development for the scheme, launched in early March.

Model
As residents started returning in late 2009 to areas formerly controlled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels in the north, the World Bank implemented a $7.5 million cash-for-work programme. Some 28,652 families benefited between December 2009 and July 2010, according to the bank.
The programme is the largest of about a dozen, which typically run for at most a year, that have operated in the north since the 2004 tsunami.
To limit the number of participants, the Bank set wages 15 percent below market rates and allowed one member per returning family to apply.
The work involves hand-dug construction and small-scale irrigation, and repairs to roads, health clinics, community drinking water facilities or schools.
"The cash-for-work programmes have been quite successful, given the lack of economic activity as the war-displaced began to move back... So far the work has been completed satisfactorily," said G.A. Chandrasiri, the Northern Province governor.
No official unemployment figures are available for the province, but some analysts estimate half the population remains unemployed or is not working enough to support their needs; when cash-for-work programmes end, permanent jobs rarely replace them.
The programme was never intended to be a long-term employment solution, stressed the World Bank office in Sri Lanka. "The priority and challenge at the end of the conflict was to create essential community infrastructure, ensure returning IDPs [internally displaced persons] have short-term income-earning opportunities... so that IDPs will resume their normal livelihood activities in agriculture, informal sector activities, etc."
But short-term cash may actually have long-term negative consequences, said local economist and principal researcher with Point Pedro Development Institute in Jaffna province (heart of the former conflict zone), Muttukrishna Sarvananthan.
"It [cash-for-work] may distort labour market wages (i.e. after the CfW [cash-for-work] ends, the beneficiaries could expect similar or higher wages than what they received under CfW), discourage labour mobility [and] self-employment initiatives. Many CfW programmes in Jaffna and Vanni run for a long time with no meaningful work done."
Major repairs are still handled by government agencies with heavy equipment or foreign workers rather than local manual labour, he added.
"I have seen Chinese workers employed in building of cantonment for army personnel stationed in [the northern district of] Kilinochchi. Local unskilled or semi-skilled labour could have been employed for this purpose."
Sarvananthan estimates unemployment to be above 20 percent in the areas controlled by the LTTE until 2009, under-employment to be at least another 30 percent, and that almost half the work force in these areas survived on occasional employment, earning less than $1 per day.
"There are very limited job opportunities available in this area right now," said Manoharan Seenathamby, the World Bank's senior rural research specialist in Sri Lanka.
This could change if the government switched from capital-intensive to labour-intensive construction, suggested Sarvananthan.
"One way to generate meaningful employment in former conflict-affected regions is to employ labour-intensive - or what the ILO [International Labour Organization] calls labour-based - technologies in rehabilitation/reconstruction of infrastructure including roads, houses, public buildings."

Insecurity
Kathiravel Krishna, a 31-year-old father of five from the northern village of Tharmapuram, said temporary work brought cash, but little stability. "Cash for work is available only for a limited time and in certain parts. Not all the people get it and it cannot replace the security of a job."
He survives on the odd day job on farms and doing construction work. Some of the returnees, especially those who live alongside the main highway, have used parts of their UN-funded government cash grants of $220, given to each returnee family, to set up tea shops.
As of end 2010, 76,000 families had registered with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to receive these grants, intended to help in building temporary living quarters, for a total of about $7 million.
Krishna said tea-shop owners and other small business vendors near the highway were the most secure financially. "But, for those living [in the] interior, there is no such option and the cash grant is now long gone."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=92164

MALNUTRITION: Yemen: Protests and food insecurity

William Lambers — Published: Feb 21, 2011 at 1:04 pm

 
We have seen the news flooding in about protests against the President of Yemen. Whether this turns out to be another Egypt is anyone's guess, but it's past time to pay attention to Yemen.

Laura Kasinof reported this weekend on the protests and violence in the city of Taiz in Southern Yemen. Taiz is the capital of a governorate which carries the same name.
Labeled as food-insecure, Taiz is one of the areas of Yemen where malnutrition is high. People there struggle to access basic foods.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) says, "acute malnutrition in children and women appears to be concentrated in five governorates: Al-Hodieda, Dhamar, Hajja, Ibb and Taiz together have 61.5 percent of all acutely malnourished children below the age of 5 and 57.7 percent of all acutely malnourished women between 15 and 49 years."
WFP is including Taiz, along with 13 other governorates, in an emergency safety net operation to provide some relief from hunger. A food ration will be delivered to families susceptible to shocks like high food prices. It's a form of stability for a family as it navigates the treacherous waters of poverty. About 1.8 million Yemenis will benefit.
But WFP is low on funding from the international community. This component of its operation needs $29 million—and quickly. Other aspects of the WFP mission in Yemen are also underfunded. This includes Food for Work to support agriculture and nutritional programs for women and children.
Food for Education is also short about $16 million in funding for 2011. This initiative would provide food rations at school for children to take home. When you add up the students and their families, you have over 900,000 Yemenis benefiting. This take-home ration program stimulates school attendance, which will improve literacy rates. Since there is no funding, this program continues to sit on the shelf.
The price of no Food for Education is staggering. After the program was suspended again last year, WFP's Georgia Warner said, "We're watching a drop-out rate of nearly 60% as families can no longer afford to keep their children...in school." The ration is the key to education.
There is also the ongoing need to provide aid to displaced victims of the conflict in northern Yemen.
If these programs remain without funding, it will put extra pressure on millions of Yemenis. And how much longer can that continue before the country is about to break? If the U.S. and other governments want to see a stable Yemen, they need to realize now that hunger and malnutrition breed chaos.

Visit the World Food Programme Yemen page.

 http://blogcritics.org/culture/article/protests-in-food-insecure-yemen/#ixzz1FrM69ONx

POVERTY: THAILAND-MYANMAR: Thousands still displaced along border

 Photo: Chandler Vandergrift/IRIN:
Thousands have fled fighting

BANGKOK, 25 January 2011 (IRIN) - About 10,000 people are displaced and in hiding along the Thai-Burmese border, having fled artillery fire in eastern Myanmar where fighting between the Burmese military and armed groups is expected to continue for several months, aid groups say.
The Back Pack Health Worker Team, a Mae Sot, Thailand-based, NGO that provides healthcare to conflict areas of Myanmar, said the displaced were on both sides of the border and the situation was "highly unstable".
"These people are in hiding sites rather than in officially recognized temporary shelters or holding centres. Large numbers of displaced civilians have now been sent back into Burma [Myanmar], often several times, by Thai authorities," said Back Pack in a report released on 24 January.
The displaced were scattered in about 28 different sites, including makeshift camps in the forest, along the banks of the Moei river that separates Thailand and Myanmar, as well as in villagers' homes, according to the Thailand Burma Border Consortium, an umbrella group of 12 humanitarian organizations working with Burmese refugees.
"People are trying to take shelter where they can," Sally Thompson, the TBBC's executive director, told IRIN. "When people first came across because of fighting, they did go into official centres [designated by Thai authorities]. As soon as that fighting stopped, people were sent back, so now people are reluctant to go into them because it's thought that people are being returned prematurely."

Ethnic conflict
Burmese troops have for decades waged war against armed ethnic groups, which have sought autonomy from the central government. The latest violence began after the 7 November elections, when tensions flared between government forces and armed ethnic groups that have refused to be incorporated into the country's centrally-controlled Border Guard Force.
After initial battles in the days after the election, there was sporadic conflict throughout December, according to a situation report from the Back Pack. Since 31 December, there have been almost daily skirmishes, it said.
"You've got different ceasefire groups being squeezed, and it's the Burmese attacking them, and they attack back, and until the border guard forces is resolved... we can expect to see these ongoing skirmishes, people coming across the border, back and forth, possibly through May," Thompson said.


 :Photo: Courtesy of Backpack Health Worker Team
A scene inside Karen State where scores are displaced

Aid challenges
Because most of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) are in hiding, it has been challenging for aid organizations to help those in need.
Furthermore, humanitarian groups are facing increasing restrictions and pressure has been mounting for the Karen civilians not to seek refuge in Thailand, Back Pack said.
"It's difficult to find where people are staying. We cannot register every person to find and provide them with assistance," said Mahn Mahn, secretary of Back Pack. "All the assistance needs to go through the Thai provincial and township level, but they do not want to allow civil [society] or NGOs to go through."
According to Thompson, most people are living in "very temporary" shelters, with only the basics for survival, including food and water, from local villagers, friends and local community-based organizations.
"At the moment, the understanding is that basic assistance is getting through to them," she said.
Meanwhile, Back Pack is calling on the authorities to allow the displaced to remain in Thailand for the moment.
"We request that civilians having fled the conflict on to Thai soil be allowed to remain in temporary shelters in Thai territory until it has been proven that it is safe for them to return... civilians fleeing armed conflict should not be returned to Burma unless this return is of a voluntary nature and an impartial assessment has determined that it is safe for them to return," a statement by the group said.
According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), Thailand hosts 96,800 refugees from Myanmar who have been registered, and an estimated 53,000 who have not, in nine government-run camps along the border.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91724

POVERTY: Burmese refugees in Thailand face ration cuts

 Photo: Brennon Jones/IRIN: Umpium refugee camp, one of nine along Thai-Myanmar border

BANGKOK, 24 January 2011 (IRIN) - Rising food prices may prompt the Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC), an umbrella group of 12 humanitarian organizations working with more than 139,000 Burmese refugees in Thailand, to cut rice rations by up to 20 percent. Additional cuts will be made to salt, suger, oil and chili rations.
"Increased prices of food and [higher] exchange rates have made it more difficult to buy food," Sally Thompson, the TBBC's deputy executive director, told IRIN.
The ration for rice, a staple of the Burmese diet, will remain the same for vulnerable groups, including children under the age of five, pregnant and lactating women, and the ill. "Vulnerable people are still protected, and TBBC plans to conduct annual nutrition surveys to monitor the health situation," Thompson said.
According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), Thailand currently hosts 96,800 refugees from Myanmar who have been registered, and an estimated 53,000 who have not, and are living in nine government-run camps along the 1,400km Thai-Burmese border.
Burmese refugees in Thailand face ration cuts

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?Reportid=91705

POVERTY: South Africa nervous as Swaziland is tottering into poverty

January 16 2011: James Hall Manzini

 Photo: AP
As the Swaziland government faces a crunch time, the IMF has recommended a reduction of the government workforce by a third, about 10 000 people. However, Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini cautions that such a reduction will bring civil unrest. Every Swazi worker supports 10 dependents, according to the Central Statistics Bureau, and the rate of unemployment is already at 40 percent.
Former US ambassador to Swaziland John Sprott felt the need to justify the existence of a fully staffed embassy in the tiny country rather than a mere consulate when a large US embassy was in Pretoria just three hours away.
“I told state (the US State Department) that if there is a collapse in Swaziland there will be a major refugee problem in South Africa and a problem for the region,” Sprott said.
That was almost 15 years ago, when the situation in the kingdom was relatively sanguine. But a steady economic decline since then documented by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in periodic warnings has since last month shown signs of a worsening slide.
Unpaid government suppliers fear that their business may have to close, government vehicles lack petrol, and a massive loan to government coffers from the central bank to cover short-term necessities like civil servant salaries all suggest an accelerating crisis.
Should South Africans fear an influx of Swazi economic refugees? South Africa’s government has expressed no alarm about Swaziland’s economic crisis, but a potential tsunami of Swazis seeking jobs (while their domestic unemployment escalates) and health services (while the underfunded local health care system fails) would not be heading Mozambique’s way for relief.
“Although we deal with incoming refugees and not outgoing – we had many refugees in Swaziland from South Africa and Mozambique in the 1990s – Swazis (seeking employment) will go to those neighbouring countries,” said Mildred Lukhele, a financial officer for the refugee aid organisation Caritas, located in Manzini and financed by the UN High Commission on Refugees.
South Africa has always drawn Swazis seeking jobs, from a century ago when Queen Regent Labotsibeni urged Swazi men to find employment in South African mines to earn money to buy back lands confiscated by British colonial authorities. The 11 border crossings offering egress to South Africa are perpetually busy.
Trade and human traffic has always been controlled and manageable. But what will happen when the occasional individual jumping a border fence multiplies by the thousands? The IMF recommends a reduction of Swaziland’s government workforce by a third, by about 10 000 people. Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini cautioned that such a reduction would bring civil unrest.
Every Swazi worker supports 10 dependents according to the Central Statistics Bureau, and unemployment is already at 40 percent.
Government’s compromise is to cut 7 000 public sector jobs next year. Government is Swaziland’s largest employer, but also the essential customer for dozens of businesses.
“It is appreciated that government is facing a problem, but unfortunately some businesses, especially the SMEs (small and medium enterprises) are likely to close their operations if the problem persists,” said Ambrose Dlamini, the president of the Federation of Swaziland Employers and Chamber of Commerce.
With private property scarce in the kingdom, investors with ambitions larger than renting office space or a shop must negotiate for use of the huge tracts of land controlled by the government.
However, this week the ministry of housing and urban development suspended the sale or lease of all government land indefinitely.
“Whether they realise it or not, or care or not, with this decision they have also suspended foreign direct investment into Swaziland indefinitely,” said a US business executive whose planned investment depends on the lease of a government-owned structure.
If the government’s inability to honour commitments to its health and social services partners continues, a breakdown in these services is inevitable.
“Swazis can be passive and I fear many will simply die if they can’t get treatment here, but there are thousands who will go to the facilities in South Africa. The South African hospitals can’t turn them away, because it is a humanitarian crisis,” said Alex Mnisi, an HIV testing and counselling officer who works in Manzini.
You won’t find information about the money crunch on the government’s website. This week the internet server that manages the site yanked it from the web because of an unpaid R100 000 bill.
“It’s not a cash flow problem, like government says. It’s a structural problem. The public payroll is bloated way beyond what this country needs, as the IMF has been saying for years,” said an economist attached to the Mbabane branch of a South African bank. “The banking sector is still inaccessible to a majority of Swazis who can’t avail themselves of financial services, and spending on non-essential big-ticket projects is still prioritised.
The eventual end of the global recession will not remedy Swaziland’s economic crisis and the concomitant scenario of Swazis seeking jobs and humanitarian relief in South Africa. The IMF has noted that Swaziland’s economic decline pre-dates the current global slump by years, while other SADC (Southern African Development Community) countries were seeing robust gross domestic product (GDP) and foreign direct investment growth rates.
“When the rest of sub-Saharan Africa was growing over the past decade, the economy of the Kingdom of Swaziland stagnated,” the IMF reported.
“Swaziland’s real per capital GDP growth declined from an annual rate of 2.5 percent during 1980/94 to 0.7 percent since then.
“In contrast, real growth in all of sub-Saharan Africa has averaged 1.5 percent annually since 1995, and in other lower-middle income countries growth averaged 7.5 percent,” the IMF noted.
As culprits the IMF points to, among others, the government’s non-essential spending priorities and the inability of the export sector to boost the economy.
Even if government can curb excess spending, causes for economic underperformance will not have been addressed.

How will jobs be created? How will social services be funded?
Will the response of South Africa be a rollout of the welcome mat, or some other reaction? – Independent Foreign Service

http://www.iol.co.za/business/international/sa-nervous-as-swaziland-is-tottering-into-poverty-1.1012427