U.N. Asks Countries to Recognize People Fleeing War as Refugees
The U.N. refugee agency has published new guidelines making clear that people fleeing war should be recognized as refugees.
The guidelines, published December 2, clarify a UNHCR handbook that said people displaced by conflict were “not normally considered refugees” under international refugee conventions.
In fact, the definition of a refugee as someone fleeing persecution due to real or perceived ethnic, religious, social or political affiliation applies to most victims of conflict today, the UNHCR said.
“The 1951 Refugee Convention, the cornerstone of our work, has always included refugees from war,” said UNHCR assistant high commissioner for protection, Volker Turk. “But over the years it has been inconsistently applied, and some countries have required people fleeing war to prove they were individually targeted.”
But the UNHCR said international law does not compel every person fleeing conflict to prove a specific threat against themselves in order to be accepted as a refugee.
“The idea that one has to be singled out and individually targeted to be a refugee is a myth,” Turk said.
Charity: Lone Children in France Suffer Due to Uncertainty Over Future
The British government has given child asylum seekers in France little or no information about the possibility of entering the U.K., leading to significant psychological distress, a charity said.
Researchers from Help Refugees interviewed unaccompanied children in 12 French accommodation centers, where they were transferred after the “Jungle” camp in Calais was demolished in October.
Many of them received confusing information about their prospects of transfer to the U.K., or have been kept entirely in the dark, the report said.
The uncertainty had led to cases of depression and self-harm among the children, Help Refugees said, noting that only one of the 12 centers was staffed with psychologists.
The researchers said at least 28 children had escaped the 12 accommodation centers they visited. “I have spoken to some of the absconders, they have gone back to northern France and are sleeping in ditches, sleeping rough with nothing,” Liz Clegg of Help Refugees told the Guardian.
Train Stowaways Found Dead in Austria
A man and woman who police believe were refugees trying to reach Germany have been found dead on a freight train in Austria.
They were apparently crushed by trucks unloading from the train in Woergl, near Austria’s border with Germany. However, because they stayed hidden under the trucks for 15–20 minutes after the engines revved, police believe the pair may have already been dead or unconscious from the cold in the open-air train.
Another man who was with them was taken to an Austrian hospital with severe injuries. The train departed from Italy, where thousands of migrants are stuck in limbo after European nations closed their borders and failed to follow through on relocation pledges.
Recommended Reads
- McKinsey Global Institute: Global Migration’s Impact and Opportunity
- CBC: Syrian Refugees in Alberta Facing New Challenges With Federal Sponsorship Ending
- Agence France-Presse: Germany’s Laws Keep Syrian Refugees Apart From Their Families
- Rights in Exile: The Politics of Protection and the Right to Food in Protracted Refugee Situations
- The New York Times: Where Refugees Can Come Home