Members of the sub-committee on refugees, returnees and internationally displaced people within the African Union (AU) Permanent Representative Committee (PRC) are currently in South Sudan to assess the conditions in which these people live.

The delegation, in South Sudan from 20-24 May is led by Vivienne Wreh, the Liberian Ambassador to Ethiopia who is accompanied Macrine Mayanja, a senior political officer from the AU Commission division of humanitarian affairs, refugees and displaced persons.

“The main objective of the mission will be to meet with government official and relevant agencies responsible for humanitarian issues, in particular with regards to refugees, returnees and internally displaced persons (IDPs),” the AU said in a statement extended to Sudan Tribune.

The team will, as part of their mission, reportedly visit transit camps and areas of returnees for refugees and IDPs, where some projects will be identified for AU to fund. This initiative, it adds, will be done in close cooperation with the government and local African partners.

However, upon their return to Addis Ababa, the AU headquarters, the PRC sub-committee on refugees will be expected to recommend the possible projects for funding based on the assessment findings.

“The African Union will not relent in its support to the efforts of the Republic of South Sudan in finding durable solutions to the problem of continuous humanitarian crisis, so that peace and stability prevail,” further reads 22 May statement.

The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) on Wednesday expressed concern over the massive influx of Sudanese refugees into South Sudan territory from Blue Nile state, saying the numbers of those crossing the border have increased in the last few days from 1,500 to 10,000.

An estimated 80,000 refugees are reportedly being accommodated in South Sudan’s Upper Nile state.

South Sudan, UNHCR says, is currently hosting close to 150,000, spread across its various states. Majority of these refugees are said to be originating from the Central African Republic (CAR), Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia and Sudan.

Ugandan authorities said they have registered 18,000 Congolese refugees around the country (Photo: Phil Moore/ AFP, File)

housands of refugees have registered at a transit centre in Uganda after fleeing fighting between the army and mutineers in Democratic Republic of Congo, a UN refugee agency official said Wednesday.

More than 1,000 refugees arrived at the centre near the border on Tuesday alone, adding to the growing number of Congolese who have sought help since heavy clashes broke out earlier this month, Sakura Atsumi, deputy UNHCR representative in Uganda, said.

“Since 11 May we registered 8,520 refugees as of yesterday (Tuesday) night and we are still registering,” Atsumi said, adding that the UNHCR had already moved two convoys of refugees to a settlement further from the border.

Ugandan officials said earlier that thousands more Congolese were likely staying along the border, given shelter by local people and waiting to see if fighting dies down before deciding to register with the authorities.

The Ugandan authorities said Wednesday that they had registered around 18,000 Congolese refugees in camps around the country. They include both those who arrived late last year and some 10,000 who have crossed since April, according to David Kazungu, Uganda’s commissioner for refugees.

In neighbouring Rwanda, the number of refugees arriving from DRCongo has dropped markedly since spiking in early May, said UNCHR spokeswoman in Rwanda Anouck Bronee.

“Currently, approximately 150 on average cross the border into Rwanda every day,” Bronee said.

In total 8,885 Congolese refugees have arrived at a transit centre close to the border town of Gisenyi since April 27, Bronee said.

Fresh clashes erupted in DRCongo over the weekend between the army and a group of mutineers known as the March 23 movement in the violence-wracked eastern province of Nord-Kivu, close to the border with Uganda.

The mutineers are former rebels who were integrated into the army under a 2009 peace deal — after which the group is named — but started to defect en masse, complaining of poor treatment.

Kinshasa accuses former rebel leader Bosco Ntaganda, wanted by the International Criminal Court for enlisting child soldiers, of leading the mutiny. The fugitive general denies the allegation.

Malian refugee women wait with their children to receive relief items from UNHCR in Gaoudel, Ayorou district, northern Niger. (Photo: H. Caux/ UNHCR)

The United Nations food and refugee agencies today launched a joint emergency operation to respond to the food needs of hundreds of thousands of people who have fled conflict in Mali and crossed the border into neighbouring countries.

The new operation, which will be carried out by the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), aims to assist 300,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) and 255,000 refugees this year.

“We are working side by side with UNHCR to help families who have been forced from their homes in Mali and now need urgent food and shelter,” said WFP’s Executive Director, Ertharin Cousin, in a news release. “The refugees from Mali have fled conflict in their own country, and now find themselves across the border in neighbouring states that are already suffering from the severe effects of a regional drought.”

Mali is among several countries in the West African part of the Sahel region, which stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, that are suffering from a food crisis resulting from prolonged drought. The northern part of the country has also witnessed resumed clashes between Government forces and Tuareg rebels since January, leading to the mass displacement of civilians who have sought refuge in neighbouring countries.

WFP and UNHCR said the $77 million operation will give WFP the flexibility to respond to the evolving refugee situation, and appealed to the international community to help fund the response.

“The Sahel represents a deadly combination of drought and displacement by conflict. This is not only a dramatic humanitarian problem but it has become a threat to global peace and security,” said the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres. “Donor support is crucial if any humanitarian effort is to make headway.”

So far, WFP has reached IDPs and refugees with food assistance in Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Niger, as part of its overall Sahel emergency operation which aims to support around 9.6 million people affected by the hunger crisis caused by a combination of insecurity, drought, crop deficit and high food prices. To do this, the agency must secure funding to help bridge a shortfall of around $ 360 million.

For its part, UNHCR has been establishing refugee sites and working in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mauritania to help tens of thousands of refugees who continue to cross over from Mali. Inside Mali, UNHCR is working with its partners to reach IDPs.

“Time is not on our side,” said Ms. Cousin. “If no new food or cash contributions are received immediately, the resulting inability to pre-position and distribute enough food at the peak of the lean season, from June to September, would be catastrophic for the most vulnerable, food insecure people – especially women and children.”

A UNHCR refugee status determination officer interviews a Sudanese man at the Sallum border crossing between Libya and Egypt. (Photo: L. Dobbs/ UNHCR)

Andrew Mok, computer open in front of him, faced the Sudanese man across the table in a converted freight container and began the interview.

“Please do not make any false statements because that could have a negative impact on your application,” the 23-year-old from Hong Kong informed the man, who was bidding to be recognized as a refugee. “Everything you tell UNHCR will be strictly confidential,” he added, reassuringly.

Refugee status determination (RSD) is a vital part of UNHCR’s daily protection work and the above scene is replicated every day in UNHCR operations around the world.

But there is a difference at Sallum because those being interviewed are stuck at a busy border crossing, unable or unwilling to go home or back to Libya, and not allowed to go further inside Egypt. There are around 2,000 people left from the 40,000 third country nationals who fled to Sallum to escape last year’s conflict in Libya, most of whom were allowed to transit Egypt.

“All of them want to leave [for resettlement],” Yvan Sturm, head of UNHCR’s Sallum team, said of the 2,000. ”The majority have no other option,” added Stephen Choka, the RSD supervisor. The best solution for refugees is normally repatriation followed by local integration, but at Sallum everyone registered as a refugee has been referred for resettlement – this does not apply to those who have arrived since a cut-off date last October.

Although both the Egyptian border authorities at Sallum and UNHCR want to see the problem resolved soon, the process takes time. Mok was interviewing the Sudanese man for the third time, asking about an inconsistency that could mean the difference between recognition as a refugee and rejection. And resettlement can only be considered for recognized refugees.

Today, the work of the refugee agency’s RSD team at Sallum, many of whom were seconded from the Danish Refugee Council, is almost finished and Andrew has already left. A total of 1,750 people, mostly from Sudan, have been registered as refugees, of whom 248 have to date departed for resettlement countries or for transit centres in Europe.

Sixty cases were rejected for refugee status, even after appeal, while more than 200 people who arrived in Sallum after October 23 have been told they will not be considered for resettlement. The decision to impose a cut-off date was aimed, in part, at deterring people who were neither residents of Libya nor affected by the conflict there from heading to the border. “The people who came after this date are considered as asylum-seekers, but will not be interviewed for RSD,” Sturm said.

While the RSD process is almost over, it will take many more months before all of those referred for resettlement finally get to leave for their new homes. That’s partly because “only six resettlement countries have taken cases from Sallum,” said Heidi Boener. “We are heavily dependent on the United States,” added the resettlement officer.

As Mok continued with his questions, Boener stood in a nearby building and addressed about 30 registered refugees from Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia who were due to be interviewed over a two-week period by officials from the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS). She took them through the kinds of questions they would face, including queries about their family history and why they cannot return to their country of origin.

Boener said more than 1,400 people had been referred to the US for resettlement and the visiting DHS staff planned to meet a first group of about 250 for a so-called first circuit interview, with plans to return about every three months to talk to a similar number each time. After interviews, and if they are conditionally approved, they will undergo security background checks and medical screening before final approval and authorization to fly to America.

“It’s going to be a few months for the case to move,” Boener said, referring to this first group to be interviewed. “It’s not going to happen overnight. They take a long processing time,” she noted, while adding: “It would be really great if other resettlement countries would consider coming here to share the responsibility.”

This was echoed by a senior Egyptian port official, who said the rate of resettlement so far had been slow and he was worried that the problem would linger for years. In addition to the United States, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden have all accepted smaller numbers of people from Sallum. Switzerland has accepted a small number of people through family sponsor applications.

Meanwhile, those stuck at Sallum are clearly getting fed up. “In this camp, I just feel like I am in prison,” said Tahir, a middle-aged man from Sudan’s Darfur region whose wife has a niece in Arizona. “I wish to go to a safe place where I can get on with my life like other people in the world.”

Habtamush, a 20-year-old Eritrean, said she wanted to go somewhere she would be safe and get an education. “I feel happy and I’m dreaming of a better future,” she said before the DHS meeting. She knew that there was always the possibility of rejection and delay, but she stressed: “I am prepared to wait.”

By Leo Dobbs in Sallum, Egypt

By Pamposh Raina

A family that belongs to the ethnic Rohingya community from Myanmar gathered at a makeshift camp in New Delhi on May 14, 2012. (Photo: Adnan Abidi/ Reuters)

Since descending upon New Delhi more than a month ago, ethnic Rohingyasfrom Myanmar have been rounded up twice by police and ordered to leave, but the stateless group is determined to get the Indian government to recognize them as refugees.

“India is a great democracy, and that is why we want to stay here,” said Ziaur Rehman, who heads the group of Rohingya asylum seekers who have been camping in India’s capital since April 9 to lobby the government for refugee status.

Mr. Rehman spoke to India Ink on Wednesday from the Okhla neighborhood in south Delhi. Until Tuesday morning, he, along with an estimated 2,500 people originally from the Rakhine state in Myanmar, had been living in a makeshift camp near Vasant Kunj in southwest Delhi.

The deserted piece of land upon which they had pitched their tarpaulin tents in Vasant Kunj belonged to the government, but their presence raised the ire of the local residents in the wealthy South Delhi neighborhood and resulted in the asylum seekers’ eviction. The police packed them into trucks and dropped them off at several locations, including the Delhi railway station and the main interstate bus terminal in Kashmiri Gate in north Delhi, Mr. Rehman said.

This was the second time that the Rohingya had been forced to move since they arrived in the capital. Initially, they had squatted outside the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the upscale Vasant Vihar area for nearly a month. They were demanding “refugee status, help with access to health care, school admissions for their children, resettlement and financial assistance,” said Nayana Bose, associate external relations officer for the organization in New Delhi.

India is not a signatory to the United Nations convention relating to the status of refugees, which defines who qualifies as a refugee and refugees’ rights in their host country. Since there is no national law that deals with foreign refugees, the government will decide whether or not to grant the Rohingyas refugee status on a case-by-case basis.

Asylum seekers can be given the United Nations refugee cards, but only at the discretion of the UN agency. The Rohingyas said that the agency told them that the process of granting such cards could take time.

The Muslim minority group has suffered persecution for decades in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar. A large number of Rohingya have fled to neighboring countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia and Bangladesh, and several thousand have entered India through Bangladesh.

Some of these people who gathered in the Indian capital have been living in the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Hyderabad and Rajasthan, for several years. “They first approached the UNHCR in 2009,” Ms. Bose said, referring to the refugee agency, “but many have lived for longer periods of time in India.”

The Rohingya presence in India is not officially documented, as they have not officially registered with the government’s foreigner offices. Only 1,800 Rohingyas have registered with the United Nations, while several thousand are estimated to be living in India.

Yasmin Ara, 21, and her husband, Mohammad Zakaria, 22, pose with their UNHCR issued asylum seeker cards and the Myanmar government issued white colored “state guest” card, at a makeshift camp in New Delhi on May 11, 2012. (Photo: Pamposh Raina for The New York Times)

A spokesman from the Ministry of External Affairs, Syed Akbaruddin, said that unlike people from other nationalities, like the Afghans or Tibetans, who have been living in India, the Rohingya are stateless. “They are not accepted as citizens in Myanmar,” he said.

When India Ink visited the Rohingya camp last week near Vasant Kunj, several people flashed laminated white cards, which they said had been issued by the Myanmar government, that described the cardholders as “state guests” – meaning they were not entitled to any citizens’ rights in Myanmar.

Mr. Rehman said the Rohingyas had been imported as laborers from across the world during the British colonial rule in then-Burma, but they have never been recognized as citizens by the country.

Like many others in the camp, he landed in the northern Indian city of Jammu in 2011 after he crossed the border from Bangladesh, where several other Rohingyas worked as day laborers. After working as a medical assistant at a hospital in Jammu for three months, he moved on to Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh and taught at madrasas, or schools where instruction is based on the teachings of the Koran.

Other Rohingyas call the popular Mr. Rehman “doctor” even though he attended school only up to grade 10 in Myanmar. “They did not let us study any further,” he said, referring to the government.

The Rohingyas who approached the United Nations refugee agency have been issued asylum-seeker cards, which are valid for only four years from their date of issue. While that is the only proof of identification that they have in India, many of them say that it is useless.

Nazeer Hussain, 28, who worked as a laborer in Jammu, said, “Police in the state harassed me, asking me what my father’s name was, as this card does not have his name written on it.”

He said he was not paid for his work and that the United Nations asylum seeker card did not help resolve anything. “We will not leave till we get the refugee card,” he said.

The United Nations agency’s chief of mission, Montserrat Feixas Vihe, who met with representatives from the Rohingya community on Tuesday, said in a statement that the Indian government will be issuing long-term stay visas for asylum seekers from northern Rakhine state who are registered with the agency.

But G.V. Venugopala Sarma, the joint secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs who deals with foreigners, said the Rohingyas need to go back to the Indian cities in which they were residing and register with the foreign regional registration office. The superintendent of police in their city, who serves as the foreign registration officer, will conduct a thorough verification based on the internal guidelines of the government of India, he said.

“Only after such a verification, a case-by-case assessment will be made whether the person has a well-founded fear of persecution or it is purely for economic reasons they want to seek the refugee status,” Mr. Sarma said. After that, a decision will be made on whether or not they will be granted a long-term visa, he added.

He defended the way the Indian government has dealt with refugees in the past, saying, “India has always had an impeccable record of taking care of refugees of all kinds in a humane manner.”

The Rohingya presence in New Delhi has not gone unnoticed by politicians. On Wednesday, the home minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, was questioned in the Rajya Sabha, or upper house of the Parliament, by a fellow member, Balbir Punj, about the Rohingya camp in the capital.

“They demanded that they should be given refugee cards by the UNHCR,” said Mr. Chidambaram, “under the mistaken impression that the UNHCR will give a refugee card to anyone, who has come from any other country, and that the card will give them access to a number of benefits. Perhaps, they were misguided by some people. They have all been persuaded to go back to the places from which they came.”

Another member of Parliament, Sitaram Yechury of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), told the home minister: “If people from other religions have been allowed and Muslims have been denied, then it is very unfair.”

Mr. Chidambaram denied that there was any discrimination against the Rohingya asylum seekers on religious grounds.

As the politicians debate the plight of the Rohingyas’, the Rohingyas have defied the authorities as they continue to stay put in New Delhi, at least for now.

Asad Ghazi Ansari, the president of the nongovernmental organization Nawa-e-Haque, which has been helping the Rohingyas with food and medicine, said that most of the Rohingyas returned from where the police had left them.

On Wednesday, about 500 of them had assembled in Batla House, in the Okhla neighborhood in south Delhi, on what Mr. Ansari called “community land,” which meant that the land belonged to members of the Muslim community.

He said that his organization is making arrangements to get the other Rohingya together and set up another makeshift camp for them at Batla House.

“The issue was discussed in the Parliament today,” Mr. Ansari said. “As the movement is gaining momentum, we won’t let it die.”

By David Smith

LGBTI people fleeing persecution in home country among most vulnerable and isolated of all refugees, finds study

African homosexuals who flee persecution in their own countries are abducted, beaten and raped in the places where they seek asylum, a study of Kenya and Uganda has found.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) people are among the most vulnerable and isolated of all refugees, according to thereport by watchdog Human Rights First (pdf). This is especially true in places where they are at heightened risk owing to violent attacks, discrimination and laws that criminalise same-sex relations.

The US-based non-governmental organisation on Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, to help make sure that LGBTI refugees gain access to safety and protection from violence in their countries of asylum.

Human Rights First examined the plight of LGBTI refugees in Kenya and Uganda, two countries where homosexuality is illegal.

Its report The Road to Safety cited examples of violence, including:

• Two refugee women in Uganda who were abducted and raped in 2010 because they had been assisting LGBTI refugees.

• A gay male refugee in Uganda who was locked in his home and a group of refugees tried to burn him alive last November.

• Five cases of “corrective rape” of lesbian or transgender male refugees in Uganda were reported by NGOs between June and November 2011.

•A gay Somali teenager in Kenya who was doused in petrol in 2010 and would have been set on fire by a crowd of Somali teenagers in Eastleigh, Nairobi, if not for the intervention of an older Somali woman.

Human Rights First said Kenya and Uganda host more than half a million refugees between them, with sizeable populations from countries including Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Burundi.

LGBTI refugees reported high levels of prejudice within refugee communities, which denies them access to the refugee social networks, a major source of social support.

Some have been forced to relocate their homes frequently to avoid the scrutiny and potential hostility of landlords, neighbours or other refugees who would harass, threaten or evict them if their sexual orientation or gender identity were discovered, the report added.

“Moreover, host governments aggravate the risks for LGBTI refugees by making discrimination official government policy,” its authors said, noting that “public rhetoric demonising homosexuality has been particularly vicious” since Uganda’s anti-homosexuality bill was introduced in October 2009. One example was a newspaper front page that published the names and photographs of 100 alleged homosexuals under the headline “Hang Them|”.

The report continued: “Although public rhetoric in Kenya has been generally less violent, LGBTI persons do face discrimination, harassment and sometimes violence. A conviction in Kenya for consensual sexual conduct between men carries a five-year jail sentence.”

LGBTI refugees face particular difficulties in reporting threats or attacks to the police, the report added. They are vulnerable to abuse and extortion by police officers, some of whom use laws that criminalise same-sex relations to threaten arrest unless bribes are paid.

“These laws, as well as broader societal discrimination, also undermine access to asylum and make it very difficult for LGBTI refugees to find effective protection and lasting solutions to their displacement.”

Human Rights First urged the UN and relevant NGOs to help LGBTI refugees report violent incidents to the police, conduct outreach to refugee communities to tackle violence by other refugees, and work with domestic LGBTI organisations to provide access to emergency hotlines, legal services and security training.

It also called for LGBTI refugees to have access to safe shelter, with accommodation options separate from where other refugee populations live, and improved access to speedy resettlement.

Up to 60,000, mostly Tuareg, people now live in the makeshift Mbera camp

Since rebels seized control of much of Mali’s vast northern desert region, tens of thousands of people, mainly from Tuareg communities, have fled to neighbouring countries. BBC Afrique’s Maud Julien visited the refugee camp of Mbera in Mauritania.

“My own parents’ house was burnt down in January, right after the beginning of the Tuareg rebellion in the north of Mali,” Oumar Ag Abdul Kader says.

“All of my things – my motorcycle, my computer, my mattress were burned. They did not kill anyone. The police came before anyone got hurt, but it was too late to stop the fire.”

Mr Kader does not know exactly who attacked his house in Mali’s capital Bamako – just that they were black Malians, and none of them were wearing uniforms.

The pale-skinned Tuaregs, who inhabit northern Mali, have long complained of neglect and disrimination by the government dominated by southerns in far-off Bamako.

In February, Mr Kader says attacks increased against Tuareg in Bamako and the nearby garrison town of Kati.

“People started attacking anything Tuareg: They burnt houses, cars and attacked anyone with white skin – even Arabs,” he says.

‘Tuareg’s fault’
Mr Kader’s new home is a canvas tent in the desert, emblazoned with the blue of the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR.

Schoolteacher Mr Assala fled after he overheard threats from his colleagues

Mbera refugee camp in Mauritania is 50km (30 miles) from the border with Mali – and hosts 60,000 people, mainly from Mali’s Tuareg community.

Some of the refugees fled the south of Mali – out of fear of the sort of reprisal attack Mr Kader suffered.

Abdul Ag Mohamed Assala moved to Bamako from the northern city of Kidal when the rebellion broke out – only to find tension in the capital quickly escalated, forcing him to flee across the border.

“There were riots and I was afraid that they would take me for a member of al-Qaeda in the Maghreb or the MNLA [rebel National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad],” says Abdul Ag Mohamed Assala, the headmaster of a school set up in Mbera.

“I was not threatened directly, but colleagues at my office were talking, saying all of the Malian crisis, including the coup, was the fault of the Tuareg people,” Mr Assala says.

“Some of them were saying the Tuareg people killed their relatives – and that now they must do the same to the Tuareg who are among them.”

Mr Assala says he was especially shocked when he saw a Tuareg policeman being beaten by his colleagues because he introduced himself as a Malian, rather than by the name of his tribe.

When news of January’s Tuareg rebellion reached Bamako, panic spread through the Tuareg community and people fled – often leaving all their belongings behind.

‘Child of the camp’
“I left all my money in my bank account, I didn’t take any of my things, I just ran,” says Mr Hamel, who works for an international aid agency in Bamako.

One of the reasons people say they fled so quickly is that the events of the early 1990s were still fresh in their minds.

During that period – the last time Tuareg rebels took up arms – hundreds of civilians were killed by the Malian army.

It is not Mr Hamel’s first time in Mbera – he calls himself a “child of the camp”.

He went to school there for several years – having fled Mali with his family in the early 1990s.

Many Tuareg families have also fled the north because of rising insecurity since the rebels took over.

In January, after a couple of years of relative peace, several rebel groups, including the MNLA and the Islamist Ansar Dine, launched a rebellion – the fourth Tuareg uprising since Mali’s independence in 1960.

Mr Mohamed, who is an MNLA fighter, says the rebels are not looting and killing

The MNLA’s aim was to set up their own autonomous Azawad region, which they have declared although no country has recognised it.

Ansar Dine fought to establish Sharia or strict Islamic law, which they have started to do in Timbuktu, where they largely control.

Their task was made easy by March’s military coup in Bamako – and the rebels swept into the main northern towns of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu without meeting much resistance from the Malian army.

Abdul Aziz Ag Mohamed is a MNLA fighter. He is in Mbera visiting his wife and family who fled from Lere because, they say, there was no food.

Mr Mohamed was also a child during the Tuareg rebellion of the 1990s.

His grandfather, a religious leader, and his uncle, a doctor, were killed by the Malian army – it is that memory that influenced his decision to become a rebel.

He insists he would never harm civilians – and blames reports of atrocities, including rapes and killings, committed in the north on rogue criminal elements and armed militia, which, he says, are taking advantage of the instability.

Mr Mohamed says 400 MNLA members are working to restore law and social order in Lere, the town close to the border of Mauritania where he was based until 4 May.

“Now that we control the area, we have no other objective than to stabilise it, and to show the world that we are in our own state and that we deserve a free, democratic and independent state. “

He says in the area around Lere, unknown groups are transporting weapons and waving MNLA flags – but, he insists, they do not belong to the rebel movement.

Conditions in the rebel-held north are very difficult – and many people are fleeing because they are faced with rising prices, food and fuel shortages as trade via Mauritania dries up.

“I was very far away from the fighting but we couldn’t stay because we couldn’t find food, we couldn’t find cars, we couldn’t find anything,” says Mohamed el-Moktar Ag Mohamed, a refugee from the region of Timbuktu.

Life in Mbera camp is not easy: The medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) says residents share one latrine between 220 people and, due to insufficient aid, do not receive enough food rations to meet the nutritional needs of the children in the camp, some of whom are suffering from malnutrition.

Respiratory infections and diarrhoea are also common, according to MSF.

Despite the difficulties in the camp, continuing instability in Mali means many people prefer to be there – and the chance of their returning home anytime soon are very slim.

“We don’t know who controls what,” says Meini Ould Chebani, an Arab former civil servant also from the Timbuktu region.

“Where I am from, only women and children are left, those who were too weak and too poor to leave,” he says.

“There are no local authorities to protect them, no mayors, no police, no judges. There is no-one. Most of them were from the south of Mali so they fled back. “

“We need an authority in Bamako so there can be someone to negotiate with, because we cannot stay in this situation.”

Congolese refugees gather earlier this week for a meeting in Nkamira transit centre, Rwanda, with UNHCR staff. (Photo: S. Modola/ UNHCR)

UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres on Wednesday expressed alarm at new inflows of refugees this year into Rwanda and Uganda from fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

“The displacement level we see in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo is already disastrous,” said Guterres in a statement released in Geneva. “Conflict there, coupled with very limited access for humanitarian workers, means that many thousands of people are without protection and help. And now people in need are appearing in neighbouring countries too.”

Violence has afflicted the South and North Kivu areas of Democratic Republic of Congo over several years. But the situation has worsened in recent months amid recent fighting between government forces and soldiers loyal to former rebel commander Bosco Ntaganda, causing significant internal displacement and pushing thousands into Uganda and Rwanda.

UNHCR staff in Rwanda report that as of Tuesday more than 8,200 refugees had crossed from DRC’s North Kivu province since April 27 and made their way to the Nkamira transit centre, some 20 kilometres inside Rwanda from the Goma-Gisenyi crossing. These are in addition to the 55,000 Congolese refugees that Rwanda is already hosting.

Although the violence across the border appears to have ebbed in recent days, an average of 100 people a day are arriving at the crowded transit centre, compared to about 1,000 daily in late April.

“We continue to brace ourselves for more arrivals,” Anouck Bronée, a UNHCR associate external relations officer, said on Wednesday from Nkamira. “We’re going to consolidate what we do here,” she added. Two of the main concerns were providing shelter and health care at a time when it rains a lot.

Meanwhile, an expert team is due on Thursday to visit a site in Nyamababe district near the border with Burundi that could become a new refugee camp on land provided by the Rwandan government. UNHCR will take part.

In Uganda, government officials say that 30,000 refugees crossed the border to escape several days of fighting that erupted between the Congolese army and Ntaganda’s supporters in Rutshuru territory on May 10.

UNHCR is unable to independently confirm the number, which includes Rwandans, but UNHCR’s Sakura Atsumi, visiting the border town of Bunagana on Wednesday, said: “These are entire villages and families” living in areas close to the border. Most wish to stay in the border area, going back and forth as the situation allows, but sleeping in Uganda.

The refugee agency does not register arrivals or distribute aid at the border, but it provides this at the Nyakabande transit centre, some 20 kms away in Kisoro district. There are currently some 2,800 refugees at the centre, including 500 who were brought there from the border by UNHCR on Tuesday and 600 who made their own way there the same day. The camp has a capacity for 1,000 people.

UNHCR’s Atsumi said a weekly convoy, carrying 500 people, was due to leave Nyakabande on Thursday for the Rwamwanja settlement, in Kamwenge district to the north of Kisoro, which was opened by the government on April 17 after the last influx. So far almost 3,700 refugees have been transferred to the settlement from Nyakabande.

Prior to this new inflow, Uganda was already host to more than 175,000 refugees, including almost 100,000 from the Democratic Republic of Congo, 22,800 from Somalia, 18,800 from Sudan and slightly more than 16,000 from Rwanda.

Since November 2011, when presidential and parliamentary elections were held in the DRC, an estimated 300,000 people have been newly displaced in North and South Kivu provinces. This is on top of the more than 1.1 million people in the area who had fled their homes during earlier violence. Countrywide, and including these numbers, more than 2 million people are now uprooted, according to UN figures.

By Daniel Flitton, Maris Beck

Mental health threat … little prospect of resettlement and slow processing times are affecting the mental wellbeing of refugees. (Photo: Yuli Seperi)

Refugees with no prospect of being released or resettled after secret Australian Security Intelligence Organisation assessments branded them security threats have suffered a spate of suicide attempts inside detention centres

Two Tamils at a detention centre in Melbourne’s north given an adverse assessment by ASIO have attempted to take their lives in the past month – one of them twice.

A third man, Jasee, stood screaming with an electrical cord clutched in his hand late on Sunday at the spot his friend had swung by the neck until almost dead three nights before.

Jasee, one of 78 men rescued by the Australian customs vessel Oceanic Viking in 2009, had become distraught listening to a Mother’s Day special on radio.

A total of 47 people have been given adverse security assessments in Australia. They are caught in a legal limbo, not permitted to see evidence against them or to know the criteria used to make the assessment.

Though such cases make up fewer than 1 per cent of all people arriving by boat and seeking refuge in Australia since 2010, a surge in boat arrivals over recent weeks could lead to a rise in the number of adverse findings.

The latest determination by ASIO led to a Tamil woman, Ranjini, and her two children being taken into custody at Villawood detention centre last week after living in Melbourne for more than a year.

It is believed that ASIO had found Ranjini’s husband, now dead, was a driver for Tamil Tigers separatists.

The Melbourne lawyer Julian Burnside said there was no effective review of the ASIO assessments.

Questions on the asylum seekers with adverse assessments to the Immigration Minster, Chris Bowen, were referred to the Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon, who did not respond.

Fisherman Joseph regains his smile as he gets ready to rejoin his family in Liberia. (Foto: S. Momodu/ UNHCR)

During almost 20 years of exile in Guinea, Joseph did not know if his family was alive or dead. When he recently found out by chance that they had survived the attack that caused him to flee his native Liberia, he decided he must go back.

“For the first time, I am eager to return home. I want to see my family,” said the 55-year-old fisherman, who is joining a growing number of Liberian refugees who are returning home with UNHCR help before they lose refugee status.

Once the so-called cessation clause has been invoked on June 30, Liberian exiles will no longer be regarded as refugees because their country has enjoyed nine years of peace. “The reasons that forced Liberians to flee from their country no longer exist,” noted UNHCR Representative in Liberia Cosmas Chanda.

Joseph, who spoke to UNHCR in Conakry, is among hundreds of refugees in countries of asylum such as Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and The Gambia, who have decided to return home before the deadline.

Since the start of this year, UNHCR has facilitated the repatriation of more than 4,800 Liberian refugees compared to 1,762 for the whole of last year, and some 126,000 by land, air and sea since peace returned to Liberia in 2003 after years of devastating war.

“We are happy that a lot of people are now opting for voluntary repatriation. The new Liberia needs people,” said Tchakoly Ali Tchanile, head of the UNHCR sub-office in N’zerekore, Guinea.

The refugee agency supported a recent mass information campaign in five West African countries to inform Liberian refugees in the region about the situation in Liberia, which has held two presidential elections since 2003. The campaign also told them of the options for repatriation or local integration in their host country.

Joseph is among those who decided to return, though he was in no hurry to go back until he heard word of his wife and five children. He recalled the day the family was separated in 1991. He was out fishing when rebels attacked their home town in south-eastern Liberia.

“There was no way to return home and search for them [his family], so I fled to Guinea. They did not know my whereabouts and I did not know whether they were alive,” he told UNHCR, adding that he had recently been in contact by phone after discovering from a refugee returnee that they were alive.

“Talking to my family was the happiest moment of my life. When I separated from my family, my wife was pregnant. I am very happy to learn that my unseen child [a daughter] is now in high school,” added Joseph, who is expected to be flown back to Liberia soon after years of working as a labourer in Conakry.

In addition to arranging transportation for registered refugees who wish to return home, UNHCR provides a cash grant to refugees and additional funding for those who need transport to their home areas after repatriation to Liberia.

But thousands of Liberians wish to remain overseas. Like Joseph, Vontaay has been living in Guinea for two decades, but the 44-year-old Liberian has decided to stay. “I am a locally integrated refugee,” he said, adding that UNHCR had given him shelter assistance and income-generation support. “I have found a new home in Guinea,” he said proudly.

The UN refugee agency is working with the Liberian authorities to deliver national passports to all Liberians wishing to locally integrate. In addition, UNHCR is working with its partners and the authorities to facilitate integration and to deliver work and residence permits to all Liberians wishing to locally integrate so that their legal status is secure after the cessation.

Joseph, meanwhile, is already planning his future. “I am very grateful to UNHCR for their assistance to us refugees over the years. Having located my family, I will be returning home a happy man to continue my fishing and start a fresh new life.”

Between 1989 and 2003, more than 350,000 Liberian refugees fled the civil war raging in their country. The fighting and violence left an estimated 200,000 dead more than 800,000 internally displaced.

In Liberia, UNHCR has been also involved in the return of more than 320,000 internally displaced people to their areas of origin. This programme was successfully completed in 2006.

By Sulaiman Momodu in Monrovia, Liberia