Aug 9 10
“My children miss their father”
CHARSADDA, Pakistan, August 7 (UNHCR) – Zahir Shah, a toy peddler in his late 40’s from a village near Charsadda in northwest Pakistan, lost everything he owned in the floods that swept over his home area in the past week, including the pushcart filled with toys that is his only source of income. Yet he considers himself lucky. He is alive and, after an ordeal in which he was forced to carry his two young sons on his back to higher ground, his family is together as well. Janat Bibi, 40, also feels herself fortunate.She escaped with her five children when neighbours…
Jun 30 10
Rwanda’s Hutus live in fear of attacks, repression
In this Thursday, June 24, 2010 picture Rwandan President Paul Kagame greet supporters who waited hours to see him as he applied to run for president again in the Rwandan capital, Kigali. Last fall former President Bill Clinton presented Rwanda’s leader with a global citizen award and lauded him for freeing the minds of his people. Now as election day approaches, critics fear Paul Kagame’s government is instead smashing dissent.(AP Photo/Adam Hooper) KAMPALA, Uganda — The Rwandan refugee was walking home one night when four men jumped him and put him in a stranglehold. He lay still, pretending to be…
Jun 24 10
Uganda: Country Has Best Refugee Policy, Says United Nations
Kampala — Uganda has the best refugee policy in the world, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees country representative has said. Nema Temporal said Uganda was the only country which allocates land to refugees for cultivation. She also said it was the first to ratify the African Union convention on internally displaced persons held in Kampala last year. Temporal added that Uganda’s voluntary repatriation of refugees to Sudan in 2008 and 2009 was the most successful. “Some 31,928 refugees returned to Sudan from Uganda in 2009 and this year, 1,819 of the remaining refugees have been helped to return…
Jun 23 10
Uganda: Refugees to Lose Their Status by December 2011
Rwandan refugees in Uganda are uncertain of what will happen to them after December 31, 2011. This follows a pact by the governments of Rwanda, Uganda and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) that all refugees should return home because their country is now regarded as safe. In response to that decision, the Refugee Law Project issued a press statement highlighting the sensitivity of the issue as well as presenting various recommendations for all the parties involved in the decision. They stated that all parties should consider the decision to invoke the cessation clause carefully to ensure that…
Jun 22 10
Ethnic Uzbeks Find Calm but Fear for Those Still Behind
Nearly half of the refugees are children. Five percent are babies, and 2,000 of the women are breast-feeding, according to Unicef. KARASU, Uzbekistan — “I have three children — 9, 7 and 4 years old — and they are just in shock,” a woman named Ursanoy Mamadaliyeva said on Monday. “My youngest said to me, ‘Mama, if we return to Kyrgyzstan, then you have to buy me an automatic weapon.’ “Do you think that that is normal?” she asked. “The child is 4 years old. And he says, ‘I am also going to shoot.’ Is that normal?” Tears welled in her…
Jun 17 10
https://v.wordpress.com/wp-content/plugins/video/flvplayer.swf?ver=1.21 UNCHR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie says: “don’t forget refugees” In order to mark the World Refugee Day, celebrated worldwide on June 20, the American actress Angelina Jolie has recorded a video to talk about the plight of the world’s most vulnerable people, the refugees. Angelina Jolie is the Goodwill Ambassador for the UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees). In this video, Jolie asks everyone to remember the millions who were forced to leave their homes because of conflict and persecution and who need to be supported by the whole society. Annual figures released by the UN refugee agency show that some 43.3 million people were forcibly…
Jun 9 10
Teen refugees to be sent back to war zones
Human-rights groups fought back on Tuesday against government plans to send back asylum-seekers young and old to the blood-soaked battle zones of Iraq and Afghanistan. A £4 million “reintegration centre” is planned in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul for child asylum-seekers in Britain to be shunted into. Documents for the new centre have revealed plans to dump a dozen boys aged 17 and under at the centre in war-ravaged Afghanistan every month if they are denied the right to remain in Britain. Immigration Minister Damian Green said: “No one should be encouraging children to make dangerous journeys across the world.” He said…
May 27 10
Refugees learn skills
Translator Bhakti Adhikari of Burlington chats with his neighbor Sha Mongar, 62, who particpates in the New Farms for New Americans program at the Winooski Valley Community Garden area in Burlington. By Lynn Monty Droupada Luitel chatted with friend Parvati Subedi as they walked to their garden plot at the Winooski Valley Community Garden area in Burlington recently. They had been working on their gardens for five days straight and May 20 they had some broccoli seedlings to plant. The produce they grow they will sell at local farmers markets. Translator Bhakti Adhikari of Burlington helped New Farms for New…
May 21 10
Gift of transportation: Local refugees benefit from bike giveaway
Afghan refugee Zahra Tahir waits in line after selecting a bicycle Wednesday night at Lutheran Social Services in south Fargo. David Samson / The Forum For 19-year-old Afghan refugee Zahra Tahir, getting her new bike Wednesday was something she looked forward to for months. The Fargo South High School student was one of about 140 refugees to receive a free bike as part of a giveaway project through area churches, Lutheran Social Services and the F-M Community Bike Workshop. A bike means big changes for Tahir, who is guardian to her two younger brothers. Before, even finding a way to…
May 20 10
Zambia’s last DR Congo refugees fear return home
Congolese refugees wash their clothes at Kala Refugee Camp MWANGE REFUGEE CAMP, Zambia — Ten years after fleeing war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Muzungu Makoi says he is still haunted by memories of massacres and refuses to leave his home in a refugee camp in Zambia. Four of his five children were born here, and the 51-year-old earns about two dollars a day selling sweets and razor blades from a ramshackle stall amid the plastic tenting and brick thatched homes. Nearly 34,000 Congolese refugees have already returned home to what passes for peace in the vast central African…
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