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Executive Summary for December 8th

We review the latest issues related to refugees, including ration cuts for half a million Congolese displaced, reports that Australia is making offshore refugees choose between their families and U.S. resettlement and Rohingya continuing to flee Myanmar.

Published on Dec. 8, 2017 Read time Approx. 3 minutes

Aid Falls Short for ‘Mega Crisis’ in Congo

The World Food Program (WFP) has halved rations for 500,000 people in the Kasai region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) because of a shortage of funds.

The DRC is the site of one of the world’s most underfunded humanitarian emergencies, receiving less than half of the $812 million needed in 2017.

The WFP’s Claude Jibidar told Devex that donor fatigue was compounded by the country’s tenuous links to the big donors’ foreign policy priorities – curbing migration and stopping terrorism.

“Donor fatigue, geopolitical disinterest and competing crises have pushed D.R. Congo far down the list of priorities for the international community,” said the Norwegian Refugee Council’s country director in the DRC, Ulrika Blom.

“This deadly trend is at the expense of millions of Congolese. If we fail to step up now, mass hunger will spread and people will die.”

More people fled their homes in the DRC in the first half of 2017 than anywhere else in the world, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.

More than 1.7 million people were displaced by fighting in Congo this year. Conflicts have forced 4 million people from their homes and left 3.2 million short of food.

“It’s a mega crisis. The scale of people fleeing violence is off the charts, outpacing Syria, Yemen and Iraq,” said Blom.

Report: Australia Tells Refugees to Choose Family or Resettlement

Refugees being held offshore while their relatives are receiving medical treatment in Australia have been told to choose between their families and resettlement in the United States, the Guardian reports.

Australia has held hundreds of asylum seekers in Pacific island camps for years and refused to allow them entry to Australia under a controversial deterrence policy. Some are undergoing screening for possible resettlement in the U.S. under an Obama-era deal.

The Guardian said it had learned of dozens of cases in which refugees in the Nauru and Manus Island centers were told they must encourage their families to leave medical treatment in Australia and return to the islands or they would be resettled without their families.

“Placing people in a position where they have to make an impossible decision – one that may have lifelong ramifications – to choose between their families and an option to live in a safe country with a feasible future is unacceptable,” said Amy Lamoin, director of the United Nations children’s agency in Australia.

Australia’s immigration department denied the newspaper’s report that family separation is an “unofficial policy” to persuade families to return to the islands or give up their asylum claims.

Rohingya Continue to Flee Myanmar Despite Returns Deal

Rohingya refugees are still fleeing from Myanmar into Bangladesh even as the two countries work on a plan for refugees to start returning within two months.

Some 30,000 refugees arrived in Bangladesh last month – a significant number, albeit much lower than the initial exodus following the late August military crackdown in Rakhine state. Altogether, some 625,000 refugees have fled since Aug. 25.

Bangladesh and Myanmar announced a deal in recent weeks to send refugees back to “temporary camps” in Myanmar ahead of reconstruction of the violence-scarred region.

“Conditions in Myanmar’s Rakhine state are not in place to enable a safe and sustainable return … refugees are still fleeing,” said the U.N. refugee agency deputy high commissioner, Kelly Clements.

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