South Sudan’s Deepening Displacement Crisis
With 1 million people forcibly displaced in the Equatoria region of South Sudan, the situation is turning into one of the world’s largest displacement crises alongside an exacerbating food crisis, according to Amnesty International’s latest report.
The report details the atrocities leading to the flight, including civilians being “shot, hacked to death with machetes, burnt in their home, and women and girls abducted and gang-raped.”
The communal violence in South Sudan took off in 2013, when fighting broke out between members of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) loyal to President Salva Kiir and those loyal to then vice-president Riek Machar. While the Equatoria region has been largely unaffected, its strategic location has made it a gathering spot for many refugees.
“It is a cruel tragedy of this war that South Sudan’s breadbasket – a region that a year ago could feed millions – has turned into treacherous killing fields that have forced close to a million to flee in search of safety,” Joanne Mariner, Amnesty International’s senior crisis response adviser, said in the latest briefing.
UNHCR Evacuates ‘Vulnerable’ Women Refugees Stranded in Libya
The U.N. refugee agency has secured the release of more than 900 asylum seekers who suffered abuse in Libyan detention centers.
This total includes six vulnerable women who were evacuated from Libya today and sent to third-party countries for resettlement.
UNHCR is “expanding its activities in Libya to meet increasing humanitarian and protection needs of refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced Libyans, returned IDPs and host communities,” according to the announcement.
More than 100,000 asylum seekers took the central Mediterranean route to enter Europe between January 1 and July 3 of this year, most using Libya as a transit country, Agence France-Presse reported.
Food Rations Slashed for Refugees and IDPs in Northern Iraq
Due to funding shortages, the World Food Programme (WFP) will reduce food assistance to refugees and IDPs in the Kurdistan region of Iraq and focus solely on those living in official camps, according to latest media reports.
“We will not be assisting people outside of the camps and the reason for that is that many of those who are living outside, they have coping strategies,” Michael Huggins, WFP’s emergency coordinator in Iraq, told Kurdish media outlet Rudaw.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) requested $76.3 million, of which $28.83 million is needed immediately to care for Mosul IDPs, according to the same report.
As Iraqi forces fight what they claim are the last remaining fighters of the so-called Islamic State in Mosul, the futures of hundreds of thousands of refugees and IDPs appear bleak.
“More than 875,000 people have fled Mosul since the battle for the city began in October 2016 and over 679,000 people remain displaced, the majority sheltering in camps around Mosul,” according to the UNHCR.
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