Advocacy Groups Decry France’s Expulsion of Underage Refugees to Italy
Following France’s deportation to Italy of underage minors, despite their pleas for protection and access to child services, advocacy groups and a lawyers’ union called the move “illegal,” speaking to reporters during a press conference in Nice.
Delegates from France’s Human Rights League, the Network for Education without Borders (RESF), Amnesty International, immigrant support group Cimade and SAF, the French lawyers union, convened the meeting following the November 11 deportation from Breil-sur-Roya, a town on the French-Italian border.
“12 youngsters made a request for protection,” according to SAF lawyer Mireille Damiano. “Although eight of them were rehoused, four others were sidelined” by police and illegally expelled to Italy, she added.
This case was followed by more deportations of refugees to Italy, despite applying for asylum – amounting to “illegal abuses of process,” according to Damiano.
Conflict and Food Shortages Force Refugees Out of South Sudan
Amid renewed armed conflict and food insecurity in South Sudan, citizens are fleeing the country, while Sudanese refugees are being forced to return home, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
“An estimated 14,400 Sudanese refugees returned from Yida refugee camp in South Sudan to South Kordofan during August 2016. This brings the number of recent returnees from South Sudan to South Kordofan to over 27,500 people,” reported OCHA’s weekly bulletin.
Uganda has reopened a shelter in its West Nile region to accommodate 80,000 South Sudanese refugees. The camp was home to refugees from the same country, from the 1990s to 2000, when a majority of them were repatriated to their homes.
Additionally, the UNHCR announced the opening of a new refugee camp in Ethiopia’s Gambela region that will house over 6,000 refugees. Ethiopia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reports 40,000 arrivals in Gambela alone, since early September. This brings the total number of South Sudanese refugees in Ethiopia to 324,075.
Continued Destruction of Rohingya villages, Claims Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) released new evidence in the form of satellite images that show some 820 destroyed structures in five different ethnic Rohingya villages in Myanmar’s Rakhine State.
The latest evidence documented from November 10 to November 18 brings the total number of buildings destroyed in northwestern Myanmar to 1,250.
While the Myanmar government has denied the accusations, previous statements, where they “admitted widespread burning,” point to culpability. The government has also accused Rohingya “militants” of burning 300 houses to “sow a seed of misunderstanding between the government troops and the people.”
HRW has called on the government to allow access to the U.N., international observers and aid agencies to investigate the mounting allegations of a military crackdown on the Rohingya, which many say amounts to “genocidal” actions.
“Instead of responding with military-era style accusations and denials, the government should simply look at the facts,” said HRW Asia director, Brad Adams.
Over 30,000 people have been displaced by the recent violence and many have fled to neighboring Bangladesh, reported AFP.
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