refugees - The African Mirror

Jul

2021

Gabriel Hertis: The sun has set on an amazing life

ABDUL-KARIM G ELGONI THE African Diaspora Forum (ADF) lost one of its hard-working leaders, Gabriel Hertis, a staunch activist for the rights of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in South Africa. Gabriel Hertis Gabriel, as we used to call him, succumbed to a short illness on Friday, July 2. His untimely death robbed our community of one of its pillars, whose leadership and dedication to working with and for migrants was the driving force behind the ADF. During his time with the organization, Gabriel worked with the founding leaders of the ADF in building a strong organization that has become…

Jul

2021

By The African Mirror

‘Refugees in their own country’: Lebanon backs aid for 500,000 families

WORLD

TIMOUR AZHARI LEBANON’S parliament has approved a $556 million cash injection for half a million families - the latest aid package for a population pauperised by an economy in collapse. The programme would provide up to $137 per family per month for a year and complements a $246-million World Bank loan for a basic social safety net that was approved by parliament in March but has not yet been disbursed. It aims, in part, to replace a subsidy programme for basics such as fuel and food that costs the cash-strapped state some $6 billion a year but could now be…

Jun

2021

By The African Mirror

Songs, stories, pottery: Refugees preserve their heritage in digital archives

SCIENCE, TECH AND INNOVATION

RINA CHANDRAN SOLIMA Khatun has been a refugee six times in her long life. She first left her home in Myanmar during the Second World War, and most recently in 2017 - when relatives had to carry her as they fled to Bangladesh with nearly one million other Rohingyas. Khatun - who is believed to be aged over 100 - lives along with some 700,000 Rohingya refugees in Kutupalong, the world's largest refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. Most fled religious and ethnic persecution in neighbouring Myanmar with few possessions. Khatun took a locket and a loda, a spouted brass…

Mar

2021

By The African Mirror

How refugees can lift up a whole society

NEWS

WHEN Agnes Batio fled fighting in Nimule, South Sudan, four years ago with her two children, she saved her family but lost everything else – her house, her income and her hope. Settling into a new life in Uganda, in the Bidibidi refugee camp, Agnes, 32, sought counselling to help her adjust. But last December, when she learned about a construction job that would allow her to build shelters for people working at the settlement, she felt alive again. It was a chance to act on a dream she had back home, after encountering a woman who worked in the…

Mar

2021

By The African Mirror

COVID-19 hits migrants hard

COVID-19

ANASTASIA MOLONEY FROM Australia to Egypt, migrants and refugees have been especially hard hit by job losses and economic pain during the coronavirus pandemic, with many struggling to access healthcare and state aid, a survey showed on Tuesday. The survey, published in a report by the Red Cross Red Crescent (RCRC) Global Migration Lab, included 3,250 interviews with migrants in eight countries - Australia, Colombia, Egypt, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Sudan, Sweden and Britain. Migrant workers are over-represented in hard-hit sectors such as food production and hospitality, meaning they have been disproportionately affected by layoffs and wage losses linked to COVID-19, the…

Feb

2021

By The African Mirror

Nigeria must rethink responses to women displaced by Boko Haram

HUMAN RIGHTS

PEOPLE'S experiences of conflict and violence are shaped in part by sex and gender. Women and girls are especially vulnerable to the threat of sexual violence, owing to cultural practices of gender inequality. Gender norms also have an impact on the roles that both sexes play in conflict contexts. TITILOPE F AJAYI, Researcher, University of Ghana In Nigeria, women and girls make up at least 79% of approximately 2.5 million people displaced across the country’s northeast as a result of the 11-year conflict between the armed group Boko Haram and the Nigerian government. This population is dispersed in camps and…

Feb

2021

By The African Mirror

Sahel internal displacement tops 2 million as violence surges

NEWS

ON the evening of 31 December, as the hours ticked down to the New Year, 40-year-old Aguiratou Diallo was at home with her four children in their village near the town of Koumbri in northern Burkina Faso, when a group of armed men burst into the courtyard outside. "They threatened to hurt us if we were still there when they returned the next day. Then they fired into the air to scare us," said Aguiratou, whose husband was away at work at the time. "I was so frightened. The whole family – including my grandmother, aunt, and my husband's brothers…

Feb

2021

By The African Mirror

Thousands of Central Africans seek refuge in Cameroon

NEWS

Sitting at the bar of a hotel in Garoua-Boulaï, a small town in eastern Cameroon on the border with the Central African Republic, a middle-aged man makes a series of phone calls. Just a few weeks ago, he was a candidate in legislative elections in the Central African town of Bouar. Insurgent incursions and violence put an end to his campaign. Together with many other inhabitants of the town, including farmers, merchants and civil servants, he had to flee in the direction of Cameroon. "Now I'm stuck. The road is blocked," explains the man*, who is now looking for a…

Dec

2020

By The African Mirror

Spillover from Tigray conflict adds to pressure on Sudan

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

KHALID ABDELAZIZ, ALI MIRGHANI and NAFISA ELTAHIR CLASHES along Sudan's eastern border and the influx of tens of thousands of refugees from neighbouring Ethiopia have added to the challenges faced by a country already navigating a fraught political transition and protracted economic crisis. Internal conflict in Ethiopia has driven more than 50,000 refugees into Sudan in just over a month, triggering a complex aid operation in an impoverished region of Sudan. And fears of unrest in Ethiopia's northern Tigray region spilling into Sudan were fuelled when several Sudanese soldiers were killed on Tuesday, in what Khartoum called an "ambush" by…

Dec

2020

By The African Mirror

Fleeing Tigray war, Ethiopian children at risk of trafficking in Sudan

HUMAN RIGHTS

EMELINE WUILBERCQ HUNDREDS of Ethiopian children who have fled war in the northern Tigray region and arrived in neighbouring Sudan alone are at risk of human trafficking, according to several aid agencies. More than 45,000 Ethiopian refugees have crossed into Sudan, about half of whom are children, since conflict erupted at the start of November between federal troops and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF). Thousands of people are feared killed. Aid agencies said hundreds of children were turning up at camps and registration centres in Sudan without their parents or caregivers, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation and human trafficking…