The head of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has praised Tanzania for the long-standing welcome it offers hundreds of thousands of refugees, describing it as a “regional peacemaker” in an unstable part of Africa, that deserves more international support.

Speaking at the end of a four-day visit to the east African nation, Filippo Grandi called for greater investment in the north-west region of Tanzania, where some 300,000 refugees are being hosted, and pledged to mobilize more support for humanitarian efforts, local community development, improved camp security, and environmental projects.

In a meeting with Tanzanian President John Joseph Magafuli, Mr. Grandi commended the country’s tradition of welcoming refugees fleeing conflict and persecution in neighbouring countries, and said Tanzania deserved greater international recognition for its role as “one of the most important refugee asylum countries in Africa.”

© UNHCR/Georgina Goodwin

The common market where Burundi and DRC refugees can interact with Tanzanian host community at Nyarugusu Refugee Camp in Kasulu District, western Tanzania, February 7, 2019.

However, Mr. Grandi also impressed upon government officials the importance of not forcing refugees to go back to their countries of origin. Over 57,000 refugees from Burundi have been assisted to voluntarily leave Tanzania and return home in the last two years, but some refugees report their decision was partly based on perceived pressure from the authorities, restrictions on freedom of movement and a lack of access to jobs, so they can support themselves.

“It is important that nobody is forced back, that repatriation remains a voluntary exercise,” Mr. Grandi told reporters, after visiting the Nyarugusu Refugee Camp in Kasulu, home to around 15,000 Burundian and Congolese refugees. He noted that some refugees are volunteering to go back to their countries of origin, despite uncertain conditions in both the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Burundi, and said that sustainable refugee return happens when refugees feel confident that it is safe to go back, and receive the necessary support to do so. Nearly three-quarters of Tanzania’s refugees are from Burundi, and the other 26 per cent are from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or DRC.

Mr. Grandi praised Tanzania for supporting the UN’s Global Compact on Refugees, which calls for greater international support to host countries and more refugee self-reliance which, he said, stimulates local economies and provides opportunities for host communities.

After a recent “savage” killing and the abduction of a one-year-old baby in Malawi, United Nations experts have urged the Government to take immediate action to protect people with albinism and “end the ongoing atrocities”.

“We urge the authorities to step up their investigations into these incidents and bring the perpetrators to justice,” the experts said in a statement on Friday.

People with albinism are born with lighter than normal skin, hair and eye colour, making them sensitive to the sun and bright light.  In some communities they are attacked or even killed for their body parts which are erroneously believed to possess magical powers.

Since 2014, 150 cases of killings, attacks and other human rights violations against persons with albinism have been reported in the southeast African nation.

Ritual killings and egregious human rights violations of the worst kind are instigated specifically against persons with albinism ­– UN experts 

Despite various moves to support people with albinism, “the recent attacks demonstrate that the Government needs to redouble its efforts to end the ongoing atrocities,” according to the experts.

“We call on the Government to urgently address the root causes of these attacks and to strengthen nationwide campaigns to raise awareness, conduct robust investigations and prosecutions in all cases, increase protection for victims, and finance and implement all necessary measures,” stressed the experts.

UN experts fear that presidential and legislative elections due to take place in late May, could further aggravate the situation for persons with albinism. Killings and attacks often spike during election periods “because of false beliefs that their body parts can bring good luck and political power when used in witchcraft-related rituals,” the UN human rights experts said.

Some witchcraft practices result in “serious human rights violations”, such as torture, murder, discrimination and exclusion, including banishment from communities, they added.

“These two incidents are part of a larger disturbing pattern in Malawi where ritual killings and egregious human rights violations of the worst kind are instigated specifically against persons with albinism,” they underscored. “The attacks and violations are astonishing in their brutality.”

“We call on the authorities to ensure the deployment of adequate police and law enforcement personnel to protect persons with albinism where they live,” the experts concluded.

The pattern of attacks prompted the Independent Expert on the enjoyment of human rights by persons with albinism, Ikponwosa Ero, to reiterate the need to follow the concrete recommendations she made, following her 2016 visit to the country.

The experts also expressed concern at the reported backlog of cases of human rights violations and crimes against persons with albinism (WHERE, ACROSS AFRICA, IN MALAWI?? WE NEED TO MAKE IT CLEARER), noting that to date, there have been very few prosecutions, giving the impression of impunity.

The statement was issued by Ms. Ero; Catalina Devandas, Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities; Agnes Callamard, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions; and  Nils Melzer, Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

The situation for ordinary Venezuelans is increasingly critical but the United Nations remains committed to providing humanitarian support, based on “need, and need alone”, said a  senior aid official on Friday.

Speaking to journalists in Geneva, the UN’s aid coordinating branch, OCHA, underlined that it was observing developments at Venezuela’s border with Colombia, where an aid convoy arrived on Thursday.

“On the situation at the border, the UN is monitoring that situation closely,” said Jens Laerke from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). “The ideal scenario is that humanitarian aid is provided, independent of any political or other considerations than the pure humanitarian, and that is based on need and need alone.”

‘People were coming, starving’ to Colombia

At the border, the World Food Programme (WFP) confirmed that needs are at “crisis”-like levels inside Venezuela, where opposition politician Juan Guaido declared himself interim President last month, amid deepening economic and political uncertainty.

“How can we know if people are starving or not? Just stay at the border with Colombia, and look who is coming into Colombia,” said WFP senior spokesperson Hervé Verhoosel. He said 1.2 million people had come, “starving, in Colombia with no money, no food, no medicine…Yes of course there’s a crisis in the country.”

WFP has been providing emergency food assistance at the Colombian border since early 2018.

From April to December last year, the agency provided emergency food assistance to 290,000 people in the country’s border departments of Arauca, La Guajira, Norte de Santander and Nariño.

Venezuelan migrants, Colombian returnees and host communities have been assisted, Mr Verhoosel explained, adding that the flow of migrants into Colombia is expected to rise.

Several resident UN agencies work inside Venezuela including UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the World Health Organization (WHO) in partnership with the Pan-American health Organization, UNAIDS, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

In a bid to help 3.6m Venezuelans including two million children, OCHA has appealed for nearly $110 million.

Help for local institutions in Venezuela

The UN has already helped local institutions by providing medical kits for women and children, and aid teams are also delivering 100,000 treatments for severe acute malnutrition. Six temporary shelters have also been set up in the western border states to house 1,600 people and offer them protection and information, as well as family kits containing food and clothing.

“Since November, UN agencies have been scaling up existing activities inside Venezuela to meet urgent health, nutrition and protection needs,” Mr Laerke said. “This highly prioritized plan requires $109.5 million. Up to now we only $49.1 million received against that plan.”

Tackling measles and diptheria

Also in Geneva, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that it is continuing to work with the authorities through the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO), notably to prevent and control communicable and non-communicable diseases.

In 2018, around 50 tons of medicines and supplies were delivered to Venezuela by PAHO, WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said.

Since measles was first reported in July 2017, there have been 6,395 confirmed cases, including 76 deaths as of December 2018. 

This led to the re-launch of the vaccination campaign in August 2018, with coverage rate reaching 95 per cent of children aged up to 15. Reported cases of measles appear to be declining, Mr Jasarevic explained.

Immunization campaigns have also been launched to successfully halt a diphtheria outbreak which began in July 2016 and has claimed 270 lives to date.

Although reported diphtheria cases have been declining among children under 15 years of age, transmission among adults persists, WHO warned.

‘Ongoing harassment’ of 60 parliamentarians

In addition to food and medical shortages inside the oil-rich country, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) noted that dozens of opposition politicians continue to face ongoing harassment there.

“The most information that we have is on the situation of the speaker of the National Assembly Mr Guaido,” said Rogier Huizenga, Human Rights Manager and Secretary of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians.

“We also know for instance that Ms. Delsa Solorzano, also a prominent member of opposition in Parliament in Venezuela, has been accused of having been involved in some kind of incitement to violence,” he added, “through what appears to be a doctored WhatsApp exchange. So she is accused as a result of that, she had to go into hiding for a couple of days.”

The IPU official explained that its human rights panel had looked at cases of 60 opposition Members of Parliament in Venezuela who are facing “different kinds of intimidation”.

More than 40 MPs had faced physical attacks and six had fled abroad, he said, noting also that the former Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly was still sheltering in the Chilean embassy in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas.

Prospects for a “swift resumption” of substantive talks between the leaderships of Kosovo and Serbia have been put on the back burner in recent months, by a tendency to resort instead to “antagonistic gestures and accusations” said the head of the UN Mission in Kosovo.

Zahir Tanin, the head of the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), was briefing the UN Security Council on Thursday via video link, telling members that antagonism and accusations “continue to be far more prominent than efforts to return to a new phase of dialogue”.

Kosovo, which has an ethnic-Albanian majority, broke away from Serbia in a bloody conflict which began in 1998, with the Security Council authorizing temporary administrative powers to the UN, in 1999. Kosovo unilaterally declared independence a decade later, backed by the United States and United Kingdom, among others. But Serbia, backed diplomatically by Russia, has never accepted the split, and Kosovo has not achieved full member status at the United Nations.

Mr. Tanin, delivering his first report of the year to the Council on the state of relations, said the lack “of a unified stance” in the Kosovar capital Pristina, on how to resume talks with Belgrade, “has reached a critical point in the days since the close of the reporting period, raising concerns about the continued viability of the current Government coalition in Kosovo”.

Among specific flash points, Kosovo announced a new 100 per cent tariff on goods from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzogovina in November last year, and Serbia has said that talks are off the table until the hike is reversed.

Kosovo heightened tensions further by declaring its right to build its national Security Force, into a professional army – a move condemned by Serbia as an act of “political aggression”.

Special Representative Tanin said that UNMIK was focusing on “people-to-people engagement” in Kosovo, collaborating with the UN Kosovo team, and leveraging its “limited resources” with international partners.

He said important progress had been made in the work of the “Working Group on missing persons”, adding that it should be kept clear of political influence “in order to maintain the momentum on this issue, which is vital to long-term reconciliation”.

“Let me underline the importance of the support by all members of this Council for the engagement between Belgrade and Pristina” he concluded, adding that “reducing tensions, enhancing mutual trust, and removing obstacles to the dialogue, are crucial to stability in the region”.

You can read more from Mr. Tanin, and remarks made to the Council from both Kosovo and Serbia, here, on our UN Meetings Coverage page online.

Evidence collected in Turkey shows on initial examination, that former dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi was the victim of “a brutal and premeditated killing, planned and perpetrated by officials of the State of Saudi Arabia,” according to the United Nations expert conducting an independent human rights inquiry into his death.

“The murder of Jamal Khashoggi and the sheer brutality of it has brought irreversible tragedy to his loved ones”, said Agnes Callamard, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, at the end of her first official visit to the country, from 28 January to 3 February.

“It is also raising a number of international implications, which demand the urgent attention of the international community including the United Nations”, she continued.

The Special Rapporteur travelled to Ankara and Istanbul with British Baroness Helena Kennedy, a forensics expert who sits in the House of Lords, and homicide investigator Paul Johnston.

Though the investigations are ongoing, she will present her final report to the Human Rights Council in June, along with a range of recommendations, including the issue of formal criminal accountability, and how these correspond to international law.

“The human rights inquiry I have committed to undertake is a necessary step, among a number of others, towards crucial truth telling and formal accountability”, she said.

The murder of Jamal Khashoggi and the sheer brutality of it has brought irreversible tragedy to his loved one  – UN expert Agnes Callamard

Ms. Callamard noted that Turkey’s efforts to carry out a “thorough, independent and impartial” investigation had “been seriously curtailed and undermined by Saudi Arabia”.

“Woefully inadequate time and access was granted to Turkish investigators to conduct a professional and effective crime-scene examination and search required by international standards for investigation,” she elaborated. He was last seen alive, going in to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, on 2 October last year.

The UN expert flagged that Mr. Khashoggi’s murder violated both international law and core rules of international relations, including the requirements for lawful use of diplomatic missions, saying that “the circumstances of the killing and the response by State representatives in its aftermath may be described as ‘immunity for impunity’.”

The Special Rapporteur said that she had heard parts of graphic audio material obtained by the Turkish intelligence agency, but largely due to time constraints, was unable to technically examine or independently authenticate it.

She called Mr. Khashoggi’s assassination part of a pattern of killings globally of journalists, human rights defenders, activists and opponents of various regimes.

“Fleeing abroad in search of safety has become less and less a reliable form of protection,” the Special Rapporteur warned. “The international community must take a strong and collective stand against these practices”.

Ms. Callamard thanked Turkey for supporting the visit and called on the relevant authorities to remain engaged and maintain full cooperation with the mission.

“I intend to continue to consider evidence in the weeks to come and would urge anyone who has knowledge or intelligence about what took place before and after Mr. Khashoggi’s murder, to share it with us,” the Special Rapporteur asserted.

The team met the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Justice, the Chief of Turkish Intelligence, the Chief Prosecutor of Istanbul and a number of others, including from civil society and media.

Noting that her office had no official representation in the Gulf Kingdom, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet had said earlier that a murder trial in Saudi Arabia, would not meet the requirements of an independent and international probe.

News reports have said that within US intelligence circles, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman either ordered the killing or was at least aware of it, but Riyadh, which denies any knowledge or involvement on the part of the Crown Prince, has formally charged 11 men with the murder – seeking the death penalty for five of them.