By Kristy Siegfried | 14 June, 2019
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Family returned to DR Congo after two die of Ebola in Uganda. Reuters reports that Ugandan authorities on Thursday returned to the Democratic Republic of the Congo the relatives of two people who died of Ebola in Uganda this week. A 5-year-old boy and his grandmother died after travelling to the DRC to attend a family member’s funeral. Among those returned on Thursday was the deceased boy’s 3-year-old brother, who has been confirmed to be infected with Ebola. The World Health Organization is convening an emergency meeting today to decide whether to declare the outbreak an international public health emergency. Authorities in the DRC have struggled to contain the disease due to insecurity in the region where the outbreak has been concentrated and numerous attacks on health workers.
UN confirms 17 deaths in Sudan’s Darfur. The UN said on Thursday it had confirmed the killing of 17 people and the burning of more than 100 houses in Deleij village, in the Darfur region of Sudan, earlier this week. Another 15 people were wounded, according to the UN-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), which said the violence had occurred during clashes between nomads and residents angered by the increase in prices at the local market.The nationwide disruption of internet and phone services since 3 June is significantly hampering humanitarian responses, according to the UN, whose Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict on Thursday called for an “immediate and complete” end to violence against pro-democracy protesters in the capital, Khartoum. Pramila Patten said her office had received reports of attacks and rapes of protesters and female rights defenders and medical personnel by security forces and paramilitaries.
WHAT’S ON OUR RADAR
Shelling continues in northwest Syria despite reported ceasefire. Russia and Turkey reported on Wednesday that they had negotiated a ceasefire between Syrian government and opposition forces in north-western Idlib province, but the New York Times reports that, after a brief lull, intermittent bombing and shelling resumed on Thursday. A doctor at one hospital said they were continuing to receive people wounded by airstrikes. More than 300,000 people have been displaced and hundreds killed since a government offensive was launched in late April. Reuters reports that many of those who left their homes or temporary shelters are now sleeping rough near the border with Turkey.
Residents and refugees on Greek island feel abandoned. The New Yorker reports from the Greek island of Samos, one of five Aegean islands currently hosting a total of around 16,000 refugees and migrants. The Vathy reception centre on Samos is accommodating 3,120 refugees, nearly five times its capacity, and people are continuing to arrive by sea from Turkey. The reporter describes squalid conditions in an overflow area outside the centre, known as the Jungle, where people are living in tents and shacks with no sanitation, exposed to harsh weather and vermin. While the average time asylum-seekers spend on the island before being transferred to the mainland is four months, some have asylum interviews scheduled as late as 2022, according to UNHCR. Meanwhile, locals who initially welcomed the asylum-seekers are increasingly frustrated by what they perceive as a lack of support from the Greek government.
Anti-Rohingya hate speech on Facebook follows refugees to India. UN investigators last year criticized Facebook for not doing enough to prevent anti-Rohingya hate speech and falsehoods from proliferating on its platform in Myanmar in the build-up to a brutal crackdown on the Rohingya in August 2017, which led to the flight of 700,000 refugees. Now the New York Times reports that similar Facebook posts are going viral in India and having real-world repercussions for Rohingya who sought refuge there. The potential for violence is particularly high in regions like West Bengal, where politicians have stoked fears of Muslim “infiltrators”. Dozens of Rohingya homes were burned in Jammu this month after an anti-Rohingya video circulated widely on Facebook. Facebook said it has made progress in combating anti-Rohingya hate speech, but critics say it is limited by its employees’ lack of linguistic and cultural knowledge as well as its heavy reliance on users to report inappropriate reports and sustained hate campaigns.
The women of Ukraine’s festering war. Some two million people have been forced from their homes and 13,000 have been killed by the conflict in eastern Ukraine, which continues more than four years after a ceasefire agreement. With most men having joined the fighters, been killed or left to find better opportunities elsewhere, women ensure that life continues in villages along a shifting “contact line” between Ukraine and the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic. This photo essay for The New Humanitarian profiles some of those women and their day-to-day lives battling the compounded hardships of conflict, a faltering economy and the lack of jobs that has left young people with little hope.
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BuzzFeed News met these young refugees and children of refugees living in the United States and asked them about how they see their future in their adopted country.
DID YOU KNOW?
Greece is the top receiving country in Europe for refugees and migrants so far this year, with 15,670 arrivals, of whom 10,700 have arrived by sea to the Greek islands.