Feb 06

Conf. 795 Blog Post #2: IDPs in Sri Lanka

IDPs of Sri Lanka

Per Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC) up to 90,000 of the 800,000 people forced to flee during Sri Lanka’s civil war between 1983 and 2009 remain internally displaced, with tens of thousands more having returned, but unable to find long term solutions.
One third of the IDPs cannot return because their homes and land remain occupied by the military – whose presence has been justified by the government as a means of preventing a resurgence of the conflict.
Random visits and interrogations leave IDPs and those who have returned home in a state of fear. With many male family members killed, disappeared or detained, women and girls in particular are vulnerable to sexual harassment and violence from military personnel.
Source: http://blog.internal-displacement.org/2014/02/04/5-steps-to-help-displaced-sri-lankans-find-solutions/

Discuss: whose responsibility is it to provide security for those who have returned?

Feb 06

CONF.795 – Blog Post #1 – Syrian Crisis

SYRIA:
With no end in sight for the resolution of the Syrian crisis and increasing likelihood for spin-off conflicts spreading across the region, UNHCR is reporting that the number of internally displaced people (IDPs) may double by the end of the 2014.
UNHCR is predicting the IDP numbers to reach 6.5 million by the end of 2014, from the current 3.5 million people.
A UNHCR breakdown of refugees by country shows 900,000 in Lebanon, 600,000 in Turkey, 590,000 in Jordan, 215,000 in northern Iraq, 135,000 in Egypt, 20, 000 in North Africa and 30,000 in other countries (source: http://en.apa.az/news/206703, retrieved February 6, 2014).

Discussion: How have relations or tensions between the displaced Syrians and their ‘hosts’ affected the two groups (i) those displaced; and (ii) the hosts.

Dec 27

South Sudan – continuing displacement

December 27, 2013
Per the UN now more than 120,000 people have been displaced, due to the fighting that began on December 15, 2013 in Juba (capital of this new country), violence has now spread across other parts of this oil-producing East African country.

Dec 18

On Making Conscious Decisions

This morning I came across a great article that talks about making ‘conscious decisions’, by Madisyn Taylor. The author explains the hidden reasons why we, most of the time, end up following the crowd instead of taking the time to make our own decisions.
Read on:

December 18, 2013

Conscious Decisions (it is found on a website called DailyOm)
Going against What Is Popular
by Madisyn Taylor
Because an idea or way of doing things is popular doesn’t mean it’s right for everyone.

Just because an idea or way of doing things is popular doesn’t mean it’s right for everyone. However, part of the way that something becomes popular is that many of us don’t take the time to determine what’s right for us; we simply do what most of the people we know are doing. In this way, our decisions about life are made by default, which means they aren’t what we call conscious decisions. There may be many other options available, but we don’t always take the time to explore them. This may be the result of feeling overwhelmed or pressured by family, peers, and humanity at large, to do things their way, the way things have always been done. Regardless of the cause, it is important that, as often as we can, we decide for ourselves what to do with our lives rather than just drift along on the current of popular opinion.

It is not always easy to make decisions that go against the grain. Many people feel threatened when those close to them make choices divergent from the ones they are making. Parents and grandparents may be confused and defensive when we choose to raise our children differently from the way they raised us. Friends may feel abandoned if we decide to change our habits or behavior. Meanwhile, on our side of the fence, it’s easy to feel frustrated and defensive when we feel unsupported and misunderstood simply because we are thinking for ourselves. It can be exhausting to have to explain and re-explain our points of view and our reasons.

This is where gentleness, openness, and tolerance come into play. It helps if we are calmly persistent, consistent, and clear as we communicate to those around us why we are making the choices we are making. At the same time, we have the right to say that we are tired of talking about it and simply need our choices to be respected. Our lives belong to us and so do our decisions. Those who truly love us will stand by us and support our choices, never mind what’s popular.

Dec 12

Kachin IDPs of Burma – Update

Updated Dec 12 2013
Kachinnews.com reports that Burmese army troops have shot at “Kachin refugees” and have stolen part of their food supplies, such as rice.
Allegedly these were Burmese Army soldiers who entered ‘Nam Lim Pa’ IDP camp, forcing more than 50 resident villagers to flee to Man Gau village. Free Burma Rangers (FBR) states that these army troops came from five different Battalions under the Military Operations Command (MOC). Such tactics and incidents, where the army uses the aid convoys to advance its ‘sphere of control’ have been used by the army before, for instance earlier military had targeted the UN aid convoy in Kachin state’s jade rich Hpakant to take territory from KIO (Kachin Independence Organization).

Summary update by Sudha Rajput

Dec 02

Syria’s refugee children

Syrian refugee children work, provide for families

By BARBARA SURKNovember 29, 2013 12:42 PM

ZAHLEH, Lebanon (AP) — Every morning in northeastern Lebanon, hundreds of Syrian children are picked up from refugee settlements, loaded onto trucks and taken to the fields or shops for a day’s work that earns $4 or less.
Throughout the day, young boys and girls walk along dirt roads, carrying baskets of fruits and vegetables from the fields to shops. Some are barefoot, while others struggle with the heavy load.
The children, some as young as 7, are cheap labor in Lebanon and Jordan, where they’ve fled the Syrian civil war. And they are fast becoming primary providers for their families as the adults can’t find jobs in exile. They work long hours of manual labor in fields, farms and shops for little pay, according to a U.N. report issued Friday.
More than two million Syrians have fled their country’s civil war, now in its third year, seeking shelter in neighboring countries such as Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq. At least half of the refugees — 1.1 million — are children. Of those, some 75 percent are under the age of 12, according to the United Nations refugee agency.
The 65-page report issued Friday by the UNHCR highlighted the plight of the children, who are growing up in fractured families, missing out on education as they turn to manual labor, sometimes under dangerous or exploitative conditions, the report said.
“If we do not act quickly, a generation of innocents will become lasting casualties of an appalling war,” said Antonio Guterres, the U.N.’s High Commissioner for Refugees, during a visit to Lebanon’s border town of Arsal. Tens of thousands of Syrians have arrived there in recent weeks alone.

With all those refugees competing for work, the children are attractive laborers.
“There are thousands like me and they prefer to employ boys, not men, because they will do whatever they tell them to, and for less money,” said Abu Mussab, a 36-year-old refugee from a village near Syria’s war ravaged northern city of Aleppo.
When he arrived in Lebanon nine months ago, Abu Mussab sought shelter in a shanty town near the Syrian border where he used to stay as a migrant worker during harvest season, hoping to get his old job back and provide for his family of six.
He quickly found out he had no chance of getting work. But his oldest son did, and even though he’s only 12, Mussab is now the sole provider for his parents and three younger siblings, earning $65 a month working in a car repair shop.
“I had to find a way to survive,” said Abu Mussab in an interview at a rented shack built of old billboard ads in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley. He spoke to The Associated Press on condition he is identified only with his nickname for fear of harassment by the authorities.
In Jordan’s sprawling Zaatari refugee camp, most of the 680 small shops employ children, the report said. A UNHCR assessment of refugee children living outside of the camp found that in 11 of the country’s 12 provinces, nearly every second refugee household surveyed relied partly or entirely on income generated by a child.
More Syrian refugee children are now out of school than enrolled in a formal education system, the agency’s research found.
“I would rather see him go to school than to work every day,” said Abu Mussab about his son, fighting tears. “But there is no school for Syrians, and I can’t teach my son anything so maybe this way, he will learn a skill.”
During a recent visit to one of the refugee communities near the Lebanese eastern town of Zahleh, refugees rushed to a group of foreigners, asking them if they have come to offer them work and whether their children start school any time soon.
In the early afternoon, pickup trucks drive up the informal settlements, stopping at each one and dropping off the children. Some of the girls jumped off a truck, running to their makeshift homes and giggling like they’ve just come from a day at school.

View gallery.”

Fatima, a 25-year-old refugee from a village near Aleppo, supports her three children, her elderly parents and her four younger siblings by working the fields for 6,000 Lebanese pounds (4 dollars) a day in the Bekaa. She takes along her 14-year-old mentally challenged cousin to help.
That money helps cover the annual rent of $530 for the shack they live in near Zahleh.
“I am ashamed of taking handouts and when I work, I feel like a slave,” Fatima said. “People shout orders at me and I listen to them because if I don’t, they will take the tools away and won’t take us on the truck the next day.”
full story:
http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-refugee-children-families-174242029.html

Related Stories
• UN spotlights trauma of Syrian refugee children AFP
• Clowns help Syrian camp children smile for moment Associated Press
• Tents, refugees crowd Lebanese valley – just don’t call it a camp Reuters
• 2,200 Syrian families flee to Lebanon in 5 days Associated Press
• Syria refugees in Lebanon drowning in poverty, says Oxfam AFP

Oct 31

Update on Syria’s IDPs

Syria’s IDP update:
Oct 31, 2013
Specifically referring to “dire” conditions in Homs, UNHCR reports that conditions of the IDP camps, generally within Syria are devastating. Per the agency it is providing for about 75,000 people with their daily subsistence. However, as my research shows in the context of IDP camps for the Kashmiri Pandits within Delhi and Jammu, there are difficulties of locating these camps, being located away from the mainstream. In Syria’s case, the camps have been built away from the conflict areas to provide greater security to the people. The agency’s effort is helping the families meet their “most basic needs, preserve their dignity and prevent health problems”. Per the report, the agency strives to provide for “3 million” IDPs of the Syrian conflict, in addition to its support for “more than 2 million Syrian refugees” who have fled to neighboring countries. The plan is in place to provide “200 housing units in rural Damascus”.
It is gratifying to see the UNHCR initiative in Syria’s case.

Original story at:
http://www.unhcr.org/print/527148296.html

Oct 30

Alternative Healing

A Great Teacher: Living Like Water
by Madisyn Taylor (co-founder of an inspirational Website called DailyOM) (www.dailyom.com) October 30, 2013
Here she talks about alternative healing: Read on>>

“Water is a great teacher that shows us how to move through the world with grace, ease, determination, and humility.
The journey of water as it flows upon the earth can be a mirror of our own paths through life. Water begins its residence on earth as it falls from the sky or melts from ice and streams down a mountain into a tributary or stream. In the same way, we come into the world and begin our lives on earth. Like a river that flows within the confines of its banks, we are born with certain defining characteristics that govern our identity. We are born in a specific time and place, within a specific family, and with certain gifts and challenges. Within these parameters, we move through life, encountering many twists, turns, and obstacles along the way just as a river flows.
Water is a great teacher that shows us how to move through the world with grace, ease, determination, and humility. When a river breaks at a waterfall, it gains energy and moves on, as we encounter our own waterfalls, we may fall hard but we always keep moving on. Water can inspire us to not become rigid with fear or cling to what’s familiar. Water is brave and does not waste time clinging to its past, but flows onward without looking back. At the same time, when there is a hole to be filled, water does not run away from it in fear of the dark; instead, water humbly and bravely fills the empty space. In the same way, we can face the dark moments of our life rather than run away from them.
Eventually, a river will empty into the sea. Water does not hold back from joining with a larger body, nor does it fear a loss of identity or control. It gracefully and humbly tumbles into the vastness by contributing its energy and merging without resistance. Each time we move beyond our individual egos to become part of something bigger, we can try our best to follow the lead of the river”.

Oct 23

Legislation on IDPs – legislation in progress (around the globe)

What is new on IDP legislation around the globe?
Sudha Rajput
October 23, 2013

Kampala Convention: Per news from Africa.com, we are learning that the Liberia Refugee Repatriation and Resettlement Commission (LRRRC) has submitted the Kampala Convention to its National legislature for revisions. When passed into law, this convention will apply to all IDPs in Africa, but needs to be signed by 15 countries to make the convention legally binding. The convention will apply to all victims of internal displacement regardless of the causes of their displacement, whether displaced by violence or natural disasters.
This is great news, let’s see if we can have similar conventions in other parts of the world.
For the full story, visit http://allafrica.com/stories/201310221529.html

Aug 29

Update on KACHIN IDPs

Updated Dec 12 2013
Kachinnews.com reports that Burmese army troops have shot at “Kachin refugees” and have stolen part of their food supplies, such as rice.
Allegedly these were Burmese Army soldiers who entered ‘Nam Lim Pa’ IDP camp, forcing more than 50 resident villagers to flee to Man Gau village. Free Burma Rangers (FBR) states that these army troops came from five different Battalions under the Military Operations Command (MOC). Such tactics and incidents, where the army uses the aid convoys to advance its ‘sphere of control’ have been used by the army before, for instance earlier military had targeted the UN aid convoy in Kachin state’s jade rich Hpakant to take territory from KIO (Kachin Independence Organization).

Update on Kachin IDPs:
October 25, 2013

IDPs in Kachin State continue to be attacked by Burmese army:
“More than 100,000 civilians have been displaced since the armed conflict began in Kachin state in June 2011, including an estimated 53,000 registered IDPs in KIA-controlled areas. The regime has continuously restricted access to humanitarian aid to these IDPs, with only three deliveries of UN aid permitted in KIA-controlled areas since July 2012. These deliveries were comprised of food, medicine, and other supplies designed to provide short-term relief, but only reached 25% of the IDPs in desperate need of aid”.
For full story check out:
http://www.fidh.org/en/asia/burma/14171-army-attacks-camps-of-displaced-people-in-kachin-state

Update on Kachin IDPs:
August 29, 2013

About Kachin: Northernmost state of Burma (Myanmar) is bordered by China and India, with Myanmar’s highest mountain, forming the southern tip of the Himalayas.

History: Kachin troops formed major part of Burmese army, but with dissolution of Union of Burma in 1962, Kachin forces withdrew and formed the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) under the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO)

Root cause leading up to IDP situation: After a Myanmar army offensive in 1994 seized the jade mines from the KIO, a peace treaty was signed that allowed KIO control of most of the State, under aegis of Myanmar military, resulting in the creation of splinter factions from the KIO and KIA of groups opposed to the peace accord, creating an unstable political landscape.
Continued Conflict: 2011 Outbreak of Civil War: Fighting between KIA and the Myanmar army began in June 2011, lasting till 2012, leading to roughly 5,600 IDPs, displaced from over 300 villages, arriving at 38 Camps under Myanmar government control. By Oct 2012, 100,000 IDPs were still in camps across Kachin state, living in KIA controlled territory.

Current Plight of people: Some among the campers are over 70 years old, desperately wanting to return home, but reluctant to return as security has not been established in the villages they were forced to leave. Gunfires can still be heard and villages continue to be littered with landmines. Aid agencies point to lack of government coordination.

Sudha Rajput
August 29, 2013, 11:26am