A campaign of arson, rape and mass killing by the Myanmar army…

The Evil of Buddhist Myanmar!

A campaign of arson, mass killing and rape by the Myanmar army is forcing up to 90,000 Rohingya minority to cross the border into already strained refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees from previous outbreaks of violence have already fled Myanmar seeking safety in overcrowded Bngladesh refugee camps, UNHCR said.

Related Links:

• Hounded and ridiculed for complaining of rape
• FIRE-EARTH Alert: Burma Pursuing ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ of Rohingya –UN  Posted on November 25, 2016
• Remember Rohingya? Posted on October 25, 2010
• Severe Flooding Affects Tenth of Myanmar Population Posted on August 10, 2015
• 2,000 dead fetuses found at Bangkok Buddhist temple Posted on November 19, 2010

 

10+ Million Iraqis Need Humanitarian Assistance

Third of Iraqi population urgently require some form of humanitarian assistance: UNAMI

The Government of Iraq and the United Nations have called for international help to respond to the growing humanitarian crisis in Iraq.

Ten million Iraqis, nearly one third of the population, urgently require some form of humanitarian assistance, including 3.3 million people who have fled their homes since January 2014. Thousands of Iraqis are in areas under siege by combatant forces, unable to escape or seek safety. In addition, 250,000 Syrian refugees have sought safety in Iraq, the majority in the Kurdistan Region, where more than one million displaced people are also residing; 500,000 people have returned to their home areas, where they are trying to rebuild their lives.

“We face a major humanitarian emergency. We need the international community’s support to prevent further deterioration,” the Minister of Migration and Displacement and Chairman of the Higher Committee for the Relief and Sheltering of IDPs, said.

UNAMI Casualty Figures for the Month of January 2016

A total of 849 Iraqis were killed and another 1,450 were wounded in acts of terrorism, violence and armed conflict in Iraq in January 2016*, according to casualty figures released today by the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI).

The number of civilians killed in January was 490 (including 24 federal police, Sahwa civil defence, Personal Security Details, facilities protection police, fire department), and the number of civilians injured was 1,157 (including 47 federal police, Sahwa civil defence, Personal Security Details, facilities protection police, fire department).

A total of 359 members of the Iraqi Security Forces (including Peshmerga, SWAT and militias fighting alongside the Iraqi Army but excluding Anbar Operations) were killed and 293 were injured.

The Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Iraq (SRSG), Mr. Ján Kubiš, deplored the continuing high casualty toll, particularly a sharp increase in the number of injuries among civilians in January as compared to the previous month.

“One casualty is one too many. The suffering of the Iraqi people must end,” the SRSG said. “Iraqis, civilians in particular, continue to pay the price in this conflict. The Iraqi people should have the opportunity to live in peace and security.”

The figures showed that Baghdad Governorate was the worst affected, with 1,084 civilian casualties (299 killed, 785 injured), Diyala 61 killed and 79 injured, Ninewa 55 killed and 24 injured, while Kirkuk had 12 killed and 3 injured, and Salahadin 2 killed and 14 injured.

According to information obtained by UNAMI from the Health Directorate in Anbar, in January 2016 the Governorate suffered a total of 304 civilian casualties (56 killed and 248 injured). Anbar casualty figures cover the period from 1-30 January, inclusive.

*CAVEATS: In general, UNAMI has been hindered in effectively verifying casualties in conflict areas. Figures for casualties from Anbar Governorate are provided by the Health Directorate. Casualty figures obtained from the Anbar Health Directorate might not fully reflect the real number of casualties in those areas due to the increased volatility of the situation on the ground and the disruption of services. In some cases, UNAMI could only partially verify certain incidents. UNAMI has also received, without being able to verify, reports of large numbers of casualties along with unknown numbers of persons who have died from secondary effects of violence after having fled their homes due to exposure to the elements, lack of water, food, medicines and health care. For these reasons, the figures reported have to be considered as the absolute minimum.

According to Iraq Body Count a total of 1,195 civilians were killed in Iraq in January. https://www.iraqbodycount.org/

About 50 percent of the victims, including dozens of women and children, were executed by the Wahhabi terrorists, according to the released data.

Number of Forcibly Displaced People Will Exceed 60 Million

Significant worldwide rise in forced displacement in first half 2015 —UNHCR

One in every 122 humans is today someone who has been forced to flee their homes.

More refugees, asylum-seekers, and people forced to flee inside their own countries than ever before, according to UNHCR’s Mid-Year Trends 2015 report.

With almost a million people having crossed the Mediterranean as refugees and migrants so far this year, and conflicts in Syria and elsewhere continuing to generate staggering levels of human suffering, 2015 is likely to exceed all previous records for global forced displacement, UNHCR warned in a new report today.

Covering the period from January to end June, the report looks at worldwide displacement resulting from conflict and persecution, and “shows markers firmly in the red in each of the three major categories of displacement —refugees, asylum-seekers, and people forced to flee inside their own countries.

The global refugee total, which a year ago was 19.5 million, had as of mid-2015 passed the 20 million threshold (20.2 million) for the first time since 1992.

Asylum applications climbed 78% (993,600 applicants) over the same period in 2014, while the numbers of internally displaced people reached an estimated 34 million, a jump of 2 million.

Taking into account that the report covers only internally displaced people protected by UNHCR (the global total including people both in and outside UNHCR’s care is only available in mid-2016), 2015 is on track to see worldwide forced displacement exceeding 60 million for the first time—1 in every 122 humans is today someone who has been forced to flee their home.

Meanwhile, the number of refugees increased by 839,000 in the first six months of 2015 – or an average of about 4,600 people every day.

“Forced displacement is now profoundly affecting our times,” UN refugee chief Antonio Guterres said in a statement. “Never has there been a greater need for tolerance, compassion and solidarity with people who have lost everything.”

Europe’s influx of refugees arriving by boat via the Mediterranean is only partly reflected in the report, mainly as arrivals there have escalated in the second half of 2015,  and outside the period covered by the report.

Nonetheless, in the first six months of 2015 Germany was the world’s biggest recipient of new asylum claims – 159,000, close to the entire total for all of 2014. The second largest recipient was the Russian Federation with 100,000 claims, mainly people fleeing the conflict in Ukraine.

If you become a refugee today your chances of ever returning home are lower than at any time in more than 3 decades, said the report.

Related Links

• World at War: One in Every 122 Humans is a Refugee  June 18, 2015
• The Global Trends report is available at http://unhcr.org/556725e69.html
• UNHCR’s Mid-Year Trends 2015 report:  http://unhcr.org/myt15/#_ga=1.140908210.1672226646.1450436139

Yemen Faces Collapse!

Saudi state terrorism leaves 21.2 million Yemenis—82% of population—in need of humanitarian assistance 

Millions of Yemenis require assistance to ensure their basic survival, reported UN OHCHR.

Between mid-March, when fighting escalated, and  the second week of October, health facilities had reported 32,307 casualties (including 5,604 deaths), or an average of 153 injuries or deaths each and every day.

• 21.2 million, or 82% of the population are in need of humanitarian assistance.
• 14.4 million are food insecure (including 7.6 million severely food insecure).
• 3 million people now require treatment or preventive services for malnutrition.
• 2 million are currently acutely malnourished, including 1.3 million children – 320,000 of whom are suffering from severe acute malnutrition.

“More than seven months of conflict have severely exacerbated Yemen’s prior large-scale humanitarian emergency. Partners currently estimate that 21.2 million people require assistance – an increase of one-third since the crisis began in mid-March 2015. Major increases in need have occurred since the June 2015 Humanitarian Needs Overview in key sectors, including food security, nutrition and shelter. Displacement and human rights violations have also risen considerably.”

• 19.3 million lack adequate access to clean water or sanitation
• 14.1 million people lack sufficient access to healthcare
• 1.8 million children have been out of school since mid-March.
• Solid waste removal has come to a halt in several areas.
• Three in four Yemenis are unable to meet their basic wash needs.

Public services are rapidly failing “due to direct impact of conflict and insufficient resources to pay salaries or maintain services,” said the report.

“As of mid-October, 69 health facilities had been reported partially or substantially damaged, 27 ambulances hijacked, eight health workers killed and 20 injured.”

“Since 26 March, health facilities have reported more than 32,200 casualties – many of them civilians. In the same period, has verified 8,875 reports of human rights violations – an average of 43 violations every day. Verified incidents of child death or injury from March to September are almost five times higher than 2014 totals.”

Displacement

About 2.3 million are currently displaced within Yemen and 121,000 others have fled the country.

“Displacement has contributed to rises in needs across sectors – particularly shelter and NFIs, for which about 2.8 million IDPs and host community members currently require support.”

Scale of Human Catastrophe in Yemen ‘Almost Incomprehensible’

Saudi airstrikes kill 5,000, displace 1.5 million, force 100,000 to flee Yemen since March: UNHCR

Latest Saudi air strikes killed at least 40 civilians and injured more than 150 others in Sanaa Friday, reported Yemen News Agency.

At least 38 more civilians were killed by the airstrikes in the northern province of Saada, which left dozens of others wounded, officials were reported as saying.

Meanwhile, the health crisis in Yemen is rapidly deepening with more health facilities running out of basic supplies and more hospitals and blood-transfusion centers ceasing to function, says UNHCR. The ongoing bombardment has severely affected agricultural and fishery sectors.

World community’s “virtual silence”

UN officials have criticized the world community for the “virtual silence” on the human catastrophe  caused by the Yemeni conflict from , warning that unless violence on the ground is stopped via political compromise more people will suffer.

Two senior UN officials, the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, and the Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect, have expressed strong concerns over “the ever increasing impact on civilians of the ongoing conflict in Yemen, and the virtual silence of the international community about the threat to populations.”

Casualty figures to September 14, 2015

• Killed: 4,855 (at least 132 more people have been killed since September 14)
• About 50 percent of the casualties are civilians
• Wounded: 24,971  (at least 202 more people have been wounded since September 14)
• No. of refugees who have fled Yemen: 100,000
• No. of IDPs: 1.4 million [1.5 million]
• Affected population: 21.1 million
• People targeted: 11.7 million
• Since the escalation of conflict in late March, an average of 30 people have been killed, 185 wounded and 9,000 others internally displaced or fled the country each day.

 

Half of Syria’s Prewar Population Have Fled Their Homes

Civil war displaces 11.6 million Syrians

Syria’s bloody civil war has forced half of the country’s prewar population to flee their homes.

At least 7.6 million Syrians are internally displaced, and an additional 4 million have fled the country, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).  The population at the start of the civil war was 23 million. Countries hosting the largest number of refugees are

• Turkey: 1.8 million
• Lebanon: 1.1 million
• Iraq: 230,000
• Egypt: 140,000
• Jordan: 600,000 (Jordan insists there are 1.4 million Syrian refugees in the country, a figure equal to 20 percent of the kingdom’s population, said a report.)

In 2013, 9,500 Syrians were displaced per day on average. By July 2014, the total number of internally displaced people (IDPs) reached 6.4 million, a third of the entire population of the country. An additional three million Syrians have sought refuge in neighbouring countries. A stable middle-income country that hosted refugees from all over the region and beyond just four years ago, Syria is now experiencing a displacement and protection crisis of a magnitude the world has not seen for many years. [internal-displacement.org]

“This is the biggest refugee population from a single conflict in a generation,” said UN refugee chief.

A large number of Syrians have been killed in the four-and-a-half year bloody civil war; however, the figures suggested are unreliable.

Disasters Displace 3 Percent of World Population in 7 Years

One person displaced by a disaster every second, while one in every 122 humans is a refugee!

An estimated one person has been displaced by a disaster every second since 2008, with 19.3 million people forced to flee their homes in 2014 alone.

In 2014, 17.5 million people were forced to flee their homes due to disasters caused by extreme  weather events such as storms and flooding, while 1.7 million by geophysical hazards, especially earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, said  the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC) of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) in its global report released this week.

The report argues that these drivers are increasing the number of people becoming displaced, and the risk that their displacement becomes a long-term problem. Today, the likelihood of being displaced by a disaster is 60% higher than it was four decades ago, and an analysis of 34 cases reveals that disaster displacement can last for up to 26 years.

People in both rich and poor countries can be caught in protracted, or long-term, displacement. In the US, over 56,000 people are still in need of housing assistance following Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and 230,000 people have been unable to establish new homes in Japan following the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident.

Disasters displaced more than 19.3 million people in 100 countries last year, according to the NRC report.

• Since 2008, an average of 26.4 million people have been displaced by disasters each year—equivalent to one person displaced every second.
• Asia, home to 60% of the world’s population, and with 16.7 million people displaced, accounted for 87 per cent of the global total in 2014.
• China, India and the Philippines experienced the highest levels of displacement in absolute terms, both in 2014 and for the 2008 to 2014 period.
• Displacements of fewer than 100,000 people made up 95.4 per cent of the events recorded in 2014, but only 17 percent of the total number displaced.
• Disasters caused by extreme weather events accounted for 86 percent of all displacements  in the 7-year report period (2008 to 2014), with the remaining 14 percent being due to geophysical events, such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
• In 2014, Europe experienced double its average level of displacement for the past seven years. 190,000 people were displaced in 2014, mostly by flood disasters in the Balkans.

Via NRC/ IDMC. Japan’s triple disasters, Tōhoku earthquake, the massive tsunami and the nuclear meltdowns, forced more than 470,000 people to flee their homes, and four years later about 230,000 are still displaced. [The monkey government of warmongering Shinzo Abe is more interested in throwing obscene amounts of money at the arms industry, instead of building new homes for its displaced and traumatized people.] “The mental and physical health of IDPs has also deteriorated. A 2015 survey of evacuees revealed that many from both inside and outside official evacuation zones were suffering from sleeping disorders, anxiety, loneliness and depression. Fukushima is the only prefecture where the number of deaths resulting from health issues and suicides related to the disaster has exceeded the toll from the direct impacts of the earthquake and tsunami.”

World at War: One in Every 122 Humans is a Refugee

UNHCR’s annual Global Trends Report: World at War, released on June 18, 2015 said that worldwide displacement in 2014 was at the highest level ever recorded.

An astounding 59.5 million people, a population the size of Canada and Australia combined, were forcibly displaced at the end of 2014, compared to 51.2 million a year earlier and 37.5 million ten years ago.

World at War: One in Every 122 Humans is a Refugee

One in every 122 humans is a refugee, internally displaced, or seeking asylum  —UNHCR

Record numbers of  people are forced to flee their homes and seek refuge and safety elsewhere amid wars, conflict and persecution, said a new report from the UN refugee agency.

UNHCR’s annual Global Trends Report: World at War, released on Thursday (June 18), said that worldwide displacement in 2014 was at the highest level ever recorded.

An astounding 59.5 million people, a population the size of Canada and Australia combined, were forcibly displaced at the end of 2014, compared to 51.2 million a year earlier and 37.5 million ten years ago.

“We are witnessing a paradigm change, an unchecked slide into an era in which the scale of global forced displacement as well as the response required is now clearly dwarfing anything seen before,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

“It is terrifying that on the one hand there is more and more impunity for those starting conflicts, and on the other there is seeming utter inability of the international community to work together to stop wars and build and preserve peace.”

The numbers of refugees and internally displaced people are rising in every region of the world. Since 2010, “at least 15 conflicts have erupted or reignited: eight in Africa (Côte d’Ivoire, Central African Republic, Libya, Mali, northeastern Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and this year in Burundi); three in the Middle East (Syria, Iraq, and Yemen); one in Europe (Ukraine) and three in Asia (Kyrgyzstan, and in several areas of Myanmar and Pakistan).”

“Few of these crises have been resolved and most still generate new displacement,” the report said, adding that in 2014 only 126,800 refugees were able to return to their home countries—the lowest number in 31 years.

Children comprise half of all refugees

More than half the world’s refugees and IDP are children, according to the UN report.

In 2014, about 13.9 million people became newly displaced—four times the number of the previous year, according to the Global Trends report. “Worldwide there were 19.5 million refugees (up from 16.7 million in 2013), 38.2 million were displaced inside their own countries (up from 33.3 million in 2013), and 1.8 million people were awaiting the outcome of claims for asylum (against 1.2 million in 2013).”

Worldwide Refugees and IDP

Asia

The number of refugees and internally displaced people in Asia grew by 31 per cent in 2014 to 9 million. “Continuing displacement was also seen in and from Myanmar in 2014, including of Rohingya from Rakhine state and in the Kachin and Northern Shan regions. Iran and Pakistan remained two of the world’s top four refugee hosting countries.”

Europe

Forced displacement numbers in Europe rose to 6.7 million last year, compared to 4.4 million at the end of 2013, with the largest proportion of this being Syrians in Turkey, Ukrainians in the Russian Federation, and a record 219,000 Mediterranean crossings…

Middle East and North Africa

Syria’s ongoing war, with a total of 11.5  million displaced people [7.6 million IDP and  3.88 million refugees at the end of 2014,] was the world’s largest producer and host of forced displacement last year. The regional total grew further with new displacement of least 2.6 million people in Iraq and 309,000 newly displaced in Libya. Afghanistan had 2.59 million refugees.

Sub-Saharan Africa

“Africa’s numerous conflicts, including in Central African Republic, South Sudan, Somalia (1.1 million), Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo and elsewhere, together produced immense forced displacement totals in 2014, on a scale only marginally lower than in the Middle East.”

Sub-Saharan Africa had 3.7 million refugees and 11.4 million IDP, 4.5 million of whom were newly displaced in 2014. The 17 per cent overall increase excludes Nigeria.

Americas

A rise in forced displacement also occurred in the Americas, said the report. Colombia had one of the world’s largest IDP at 6 million, with 137,000 Colombians being newly displaced in 2014. “With more people fleeing gang violence or other forms of persecution in Central America, the United States saw 36,800 more asylum claims than in 2013, representing growth of 44 percent.”

The Global Trends report is available at http://unhcr.org/556725e69.html.