UN – Top News Stories

7 March 2017 – The United Nations refugee agency voiced deep concerned at a new law voted today by the Hungarian Parliament that could lead to mandatory detention of all asylum-seekers, including many children – for the entire length of the asylum procedure – and warned that it would have a terrible impact on people who have already suffered greatly.

“In practice, it means that every asylum-seeker, including children, would be detained in shipping containers surrounded by high razor wire fence at the border for extended periods of time,” Cécile Pouilly, a spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told the media today at a news briefing at the UN Office at Geneva (UNOG).

“The new law violates Hungary’s obligations under international and European Union (EU) laws, and will have a terrible physical and psychological impact on women, children and men who had already greatly suffered,” she added.

According to the UN agency, under international and EU laws, the detention of refugees and asylum-seekers could only be justified on a limited number of grounds, and only where it was necessary, reasonable and proportionate.

That requires authorities to consider whether there were less coercive or intrusive measures to achieve those goals, based on an assessment of the individual’s particular circumstances, explained Ms. Pouilly, adding that alternatives to detention should always to be considered first.

“Failure to do so could render detention arbitrary,” she said.

Until now, asylum-seekers had been allowed to stay in open reception centres across the country. However, with the new law the people who had entered the country, having passed through the transit zones, would be moved back to those zones and confined to the containers.

RELATED: Refugees and migrants taking ‘enormous risks’ to reach Europe

“This is extremely worrying, especially thinking about children being detained,” noted Ms. Pouilly, adding: “Children should never be detained under any conditions as detention was never in a child’s best interest.”

She also said that the Government had also already erected a razor wire barrier along the entire border with Serbia and, now, only 50 asylum seekers were allowed to enter the country per week, at two crossing points.

Lack of legal pathways to access Europe and because of the closed borders, many people are resorting to smugglers, which make them, and especially children, event more vulnerable and harder to track.

The UNHCR spokesperson further told the media that the physical barriers already erected, together with legislative and policy obstacles, make it nearly impossible for asylum-seekers to enter the country, apply for asylum and receive international protection.

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7 March 2017 – Disasters in the Americas over the past year such as Hurricane Matthew show the challenge the world faces meeting the risk reduction targets established by the UN’s Sendai Framework.

That’s according to Robert Glasser, head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), addressing the opening of the Fifth Regional Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in the Americas, taking place this week in Montreal, Canada.

The Sendai Framework, agreed by 187 Member States in 2015, aims to reduce loss of life and injury by shifting from managing disasters, to managing disaster risk, and being better prepared.

A group of four indigenous elders opened proceedings with prayers and blessings for around 1,000 delegates from across the Americas.

More than 50 countries and territories are represented at the forum, aiming to agree a Regional Action Plan by the time they wrap up their work on Thursday, on the Americas’ contribution towards the Sendai targets, which follow the timetable of the overall 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Mr. Glasser also highlighted the impact of Hurricane Matthew, which ripped through the Caribbean in early October last year, causing widespread devastation to Haiti, including 546 deaths and losses estimated at $2.78 billion.

Sendai means saving life by making economies and societies more resilient, he said.

“Disaster events […] over the last 12 months in the Americas have highlighted how challenging it’s going to be to achieve those targets,” he said, noting that Matthew, the first Category 5 Atlantic hurricane in almost 10 years was a stern test of the region’s preparedness for an event – or something similar – that is likely occur more frequently in future as a result of climate change.

The UNISDR chief said it had been “heartening” to see the response in Central and South America especially to the “major slow onset disaster event” posed by the El Niño weather pattern of the past few years.

“It’s efforts such as these that we must now build on as we prepare to meet the first deadline of the Sendai Framework, the substantial increase in national and local disaster risk reduction strategies by 2020. These strategies will lay the foundations for a decade of concerted action on reducing disaster losses,” added Mr. Glasser.

The conference is due to end on Thursday, with a Montreal Declaration that will go forward to the 2017 Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction, in Mexico, in May.

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7 March 2017 – The United Nations human rights office today launched a joint report with the African Union and UN Women detailing the progress and challenges to women’s struggle for human rights in Africa, while the UN rights chief warned that the women’s movement around the world is facing a backlash that hurts both men and women.

“We need to be alert – the advances of the last few decades are fragile and should nowhere be taken for granted,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said in a statement ahead of International Women’s Day, marked annually on 8 March.

The UN High Commissioner added that it is “extremely troubling” to see recent roll-back of fundamental legislation in many parts of the world.

Such roll-backs are “underpinned by the renewed obsession with controlling and limiting women’s decisions over their bodies and lives, and by views that a woman’s role should be essentially restricted to reproduction and the family,” he said.

While such pushbacks are carried out in the name of tradition, Mr. Zeid noted that they are often a response to segments of society calling for change.

Among examples he gave, Mr. Zeid pointed to recent legislation in Bangladesh, Burundi and the Russian Federation, which weakens women’s rights to fight against child marriage, marital rape and domestic violence, respectively.

He noted also the “fierce resistance” in the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua to political and civil society efforts to open up access to sexual and reproductive rights.

“With the world’s young population concentrated in developing nations, retrogressive measures denying women and girls access to sexual and reproductive health services will have a devastating effect,” Mr. Zeid said, noting more maternal deaths, more unintended pregnancies, fewer girls finishing school and the economic impact of failing to fully include women in the workforce.

“In short, a generation without choices and a collective failure to deliver on the promises of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” he added, referring to the internationally agreed action plan for eradicating poverty while assisting all people and maintain the health of the planet.

Meanwhile, Mr. Zeid praised women’s movements in countries such as Argentina, Poland and Saudi Arabia, where women and men took to the streets to demand change, but warned that “it is time to come together to protect the important gains of the past and maintain a positive momentum.”

Women as active agents of change

In Africa, women continue to be denied full enjoyment of their rights in every country, according to a new report released today entitled Women’s Rights in Africa.

Statistics show that some African countries have no legal protection for women against domestic violence, are forced to undergo female genital mutilation, and forced to marry while still children.

According to the report, however, in Africa – as around the globe – when women exercise their rights to access to education, skills, and jobs, there is a surge in prosperity, positive health outcomes, and greater freedom and well-being, not only of women but of the whole society.

“Human rights are not a utopian fairy-tale -they are a recipe for sound institutions, more sustainable development and greater peace,” Mr. Zeid wrote in the Foreword to the report.

“When all women are empowered to make their own choices and share resources, opportunities and decisions as equal partners, every society in Africa will be transformed.”

Among its recommendations, the report calls on African governments to encourage women’s full and productive employment, to recognize the importance of unpaid care and domestic work, and to ensure women can access and control their own economic and financial resources.

The report stresses that women should not be seen only as victims but, for example, as active agents in formal and informal peace building processes.

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UN agency expanding camps around Mosul to cope with surge in displacement

7 March 2017 –

Amid a spike in new displacement triggered by the Iraqi military offensive to recapture western Mosul, the United Nations refugee agency is setting up new camps and expanding existing ones to shelter new arrivals, many of whom are visibly traumatized, hungry and dehydrated.

According to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), its newly opened Chamakor camp will help manage the up tic.

“[The camp] received its first 200 residents [yesterday] and more arrivals are expected [today] and through the week.” Cécile Pouilly, a spokesperson for the UN agency, said at a media briefing today at the UN Office at Geneva (UNOG).

“It is ready to immediately receive 6,600 people,” she added.

The UN agency is also building two additional camps – one to the east of Mosul and the other, south – for some 39,000 people and setting up 19 tented halls in the Iraqi Government-built Hammam al-Alil, that will serve as reception centres and transit area.

RELATED: 15,000 children flee west Mosul over past week as battle intensifies, says UNICEF

Ms. Pouilly also said that UNHCR is exploring expanding capacity in camps north of the city but is facing serious challenges finding suitable land to build the camps.

Hunger and insecurity biggest reason to flee

Hunger and insecurity have been cited as the key factors in the decision to flee by newly displaced families, who told the UN agency of armed groups attacking areas recently retaken by Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), causing sustained civilian casualties.

“The newest arrivals are in a desperate condition, visibly traumatized, hungry and dehydrated. Many arrived without shoes and wearing soaking clothes, having walked long distances to reach safety at government checkpoints,” said the UNHCR spokesperson.

“Some had left relatives behind, hoping to be reunited once they are able to find safer exit routes from west Mosul. Families recounted surviving on one meal a day – flour and water, sometimes supplemented by bread or tomato paste – over recent weeks.”

Currently there are 211,572 Iraqis displaced by the fighting in Mosul, with over 50,000 added since the beginning of the latest operations in west Mosul, launched on 19 February.

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News Tracker: past stories on this issue

UN migration agency reports surge in displacement from Mosul as fighting intensifies

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7 March 2017 – Visiting Somalia, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres today urged international support to avoid a famine in the drought-hit African country and curb the spread of cholera while also highlighting some hopeful developments there.

&#8220It is exactly because it is tragic and because it is hopeful that it makes sense to make a very strong appeal to the international community to support Somalia at the present moment,&#8221 Mr. Guterres told reporters in the country’s capital, Mogadishu.

With almost half of the Somali population in need of assistance, including 330,000 children who are acutely malnourished, the UN chief reiterated an appeal for $825 million for the support of 5.5 million people for six months.

&#8220There is a chance in Somalia to avoid a situation like the one we had in 2011,&#8221 he said, referring to the previous famine that killed many in that country.

He said that 3.3 million people are in need of health support and that cholera has been developing and making hunger even worse and more dangerous. In the last two months, there were 7,731 cases of cholera with 183 people dying. Just last week, there were 1,352 cases of cholera and 38 people dying. &#8220It’s a process in acceleration,&#8221 he warned.

But now is also &#8220a moment of hope&#8221 because Somalia is turning the page, with a new President elected and a new Prime Minister appointed, he said.

&#8220There is a very strong commitment to enhance security and at the same time to enhance the capacity of the government to start to provide effective services to the population,&#8221 he said.

The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), which is doing a job that the world should be grateful for because it is not only protecting Somalis, but protecting all against terrorism, has not been effectively helped by the international community, he said.

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