Algiers bomb attack: UNHCR mourns dead drivers
Briefing Notes, 14 December 2007
This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at the press briefing, on 14 December 2007, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.
At UNHCR's Geneva headquarters yesterday, normal activity came to a standstill as staff observed a minute of silence in memory of their two colleagues – drivers Karim Bentebal and Nabil Slimani, both Algerian nationals – killed in the deadly bomb blast which destroyed the agency's office in Algiers on Tuesday. One staff member was seriously wounded, while others sustained minor injuries from the powerful blast which ripped the façade off the UNHCR office. A support team from Geneva was urgently dispatched to Algiers on Wednesday to assist staff and families of those killed in this horrific incident. We are currently assessing how to best continue operating in Algeria where we assist Sahrawi refugees from the Western Sahara in five refugee camps in Tindouf. UNHCR has around 40 staff working in Algeria, 14 were in Algiers at the time of the blast. Most of our staff work in the Tindouf area some 2,000 km south-west of the capital.
It has been a particularly black time for UNHCR, with three drivers killed in the line of humanitarian duty in the space of a week. In southern Chad late last week driver Mahamat Mahamadou, a Chadian national, was shot dead in his vehicle in unexplained circumstances on a route normally considered as safe. UNHCR drivers are a vital part of our frontline humanitarian staff and widely recognised as crucial to our operations and understanding of the countries we work in. It is very troubling that three drivers have lost their lives in such violent circumstances within a week.
Western Sahara Family Visits
Emotions are running high in the Sahara desert as families split for nearly three decades by conflict over sovereignty of the Western Sahara Territory are being briefly reunited by a UNHCR family visit scheme.
Living in five windswept and isolated camps around Tindouf in south-western Algeria for the last 28 years, the refugees have been almost totally cut off from their relatives in the Territory. So when the UN refugee agency launched its five-day family visit scheme in March this year, there were tears of joy as well as apprehension at the prospect of reunion.
The visit scheme is proving extremely popular, with more than 800 people already having visited their relatives and another 18,000 signed up to go. In addition to the family visit scheme, the UN refugee agency has opened telephone centres in some of the camps, creating another channel through which long-lost family members can make contact.
Photos taken in June 2004.
Western Sahara Family Visits
Pakistan: Fleeing to Safety
More than 1.5 million people flee their homes in North-West Pakistan.
Fighting between the army and Taliban militants in and around the Swat Valley in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province has displaced more than 1.5 million people since the beginning of May. Some of the displaced are being sheltered in camps set up by the government and supplied by UNHCR. Others - the majority, in fact - are staying in public buildings, such as schools, or with friends and extended family members. Living conditions are harsh. With the onset of summer, rising temperatures are contributing to a range of ailments, especially for villagers from Swat accustomed to a cooler climate. Pakistan's displacement crisis has triggered an outpouring of generosity at home. UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres is urging a "massive" assistance effort from abroad as well.
Pakistan: Fleeing to Safety
A Place to Call Home (Part 1): 1953 - 1995
Based on the 2004 World Refugee Day theme, "A place to call home: Rebuilding lives in safety and dignity", this two-part gallery highlights the history of UNHCR's efforts to help some of the world's most disenfranchised people to find a place called home, whether through repatriation, resettlement or local integration.
In more than a half century of humanitarian work, the UN refugee agency has helped more than 50 million uprooted people across the globe to successfully restart their lives.
Following the end of World War II and in the prevailing climate of the Cold War, many refugees, including those fleeing Soviet-dominated countries or the aftermath of the conflict in Indo China, were welcomed by the countries to which they initially fled or resettled in states even further afield.
In Part 1 of the gallery, a family restarts its life in New Zealand in the 1950s after years in a German camp; Vietnamese children make their first snowman in Sweden; while two sisters rebuild their home after returning to post-war Mozambique in the early 1990s.
A Place to Call Home (Part 1): 1953 - 1995
South Sudan: Seeking Safety
The number of refugees along the north-eastern border of South Sudan is growing. Some are heading further inland to Jammam Camp, set up by UNHCR a month ago.
Kenya: In Need of Protection
The legacy of Sudan's civil war haunts many refugees. In Kakuma camp some need special protection to ensure their safety.
Kenya: Refugee Women
The long trek to safety in Kenya has been particularly hard for Somali mothers like Mariane, who was pregnant, and Fatuma, who lost her baby son en route.
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