U.N. Official Predicts 2 Million South Sudanese Refugees by Year End
There will be 2 million South Sudanese refugees by the end of the year if current rates of displacement continue, according to the the head of the U.N. mission in South Sudan.
David Shearer told the U.N. Security Council that around 60,000 people fled South Sudan per month in the first three months of 2017.
A series of government offensives around the country have emptied towns and villages, as civilians flee massacres, which in some areas have been described by the U.N. as ethnic cleansing. Already, some 1.7 million people have fled the conflict, which has caused a famine in parts of the country.
At least 25,000 people were displaced in the town of Kodok near the border with Sudan after a government offensive this week. In the south, leaders in the town of Torit said 75 percent of the population had fled over the border to Uganda.
“Virtually no part of the country is immune from conflict,” Shearer told the Security Council.
Lebanon Arrests Dozens of Syrians Trying to Cross Border
Lebanese police arrested 91 Syrians entering Lebanon by car and on foot, among them 29 women and 33 children.
The Syria-Lebanon border has been closed to most Syrians since January 2015. An estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees are sheltering in the country.
“Syrians fleeing for their lives have the right to seek asylum,” Human Rights Watch’s Bassam Khawaja wrote on Twitter in response to reports of the arrests.
U.N. Urges Myanmar to Allow Rohingya Refugees to Return to Their Homes
The U.N. refugee agency has warned that Myanmar’s plan to relocate returning Rohingya refugees to newly built “model villages” would create further instability, Reuters reports.
Around 75,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since last October when security forces launched a six-month offensive against militants, during which they were accused of mass killings, rapes and the razing of whole communities.
Returning refugees have been banned from rebuilding their homes, and residents of 13 villages are set to be relocated to “model villages” currently under construction. The government says the plan will give the residents better access to government services and improve security in the area.
But many Rohingya fear the plan is a cover to move them into displacement camps, as happened after the last outbreak of violence in Rakhine state in 2012. Some 120,000 Rohingya are still living in those camps, dependent on aid and under movement restrictions.
“A forced relocation to the ‘model villages’ would not progress stabilization in these areas,” said a UNHCR advocacy note seen by Reuters.
Recommended Reads:
- PRI: English Speakers From Cameroon Are Joining Syrian Refugees on Migrant Boats
- The New York Times: Welcome to Weimar
- Reuters: Syrian Refugees Must Buy Travel Papers – From Assad
- SOAS Blog: Threat of Famine Brings With It Mass Displacement in Somalia
- CSIS: Stuck in Limbo: Refugees, Migrants and the Food Insecure in Djibouti