After a quiet year in 2015, migrants fleeing violence in Central America are crossing the US border in numbers rivaling the massive influx that occurred in 2014. But in a significant policy shift, the US announced last week it would formally open its refugee resettlement program to those fleeing violence in Central America, marking a significant change in how these children and families are treated.
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Students in Burundi try to take refuge at US Embassy | Photo credit: AFP/Marco Longari
Could Trouble in Burundi Take Down the Entire Region?
Nine months after President Pierre Nkurunziza upended Burundi’s fragile post-conflict peace by announcing he would stand for a third term in office, all indications are the crisis is getting worse rather than better. New evidence of sexual assault by security forces and growing allegations of mass killings coupled with the staunch unwillingness by Nkurunziza’s government to participate in regional talks aimed at resolving the crisis are leaving many to wonder how bad things will get.
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Aleppo under siege, 2013 | Photo credit: Basma
Starving in Syria
A sliver of good news came out of Syria yesterday with the announcement that the Syrian government would allow aid into the besieged city of Madaya. Located on the border with Lebanon, reports of starvation emerged earlier this week, highlighting once again the dire situation facing many inside Syria. However hundreds of thousands of others remain out of reach of aid agencies, lacking basic means of survival in a war where starvation has become a weapon wielded by all sides.
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Refugees fleeing Kosovo in 1999 | Photo credit: UN Photo/R. LeMoyne
A Refugee Convention for the 21st Century
The decades old system of international laws and agreements intended to facilitate the safe and dignified processing of refugees is now clearly broken. Unless the international community substantially updates these policies to reflect the realities of the 21st century, the old system is bound to fold under the pressure.
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Photo Credit: Gert Kamphuis
Stuck in the Calais Jungle
With all the focus on the current refugee crisis in Europe, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that refugees have been coming to Europe from Africa and the Middle East for years. The experience of those refugees and migrants are instructive to understanding the current crisis, and how far Europe needs to go in creating humane policies that uphold the rights of refugees.
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Photo credit: Heidi Soeters/CDC
Reflecting on Lessons Learned from Ebola Outbreak
As the UN celebrates the official launch of the post-2015 agenda with the Sustainable Development Goals and world leaders start laying out their views in the UN General Debate, much of this week in New York is about looking forward. But on the sidelines of the main events focused on the SDGs, peacekeeping, violent extremism and the Syrian crisis, many are using this week as an opportunity to look back at the past year. Namely, a year after the West African Ebola outbreak reached its peak, many are discussing what went wrong and how to better prepare for the next epidemic.
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The UN Gives a Big Boost to Child and Maternal Health
Now that the UN and global community officially adopted the Sustainable Development Goals last week, the real work begins. One of the key holdovers from the Millennium Development Goals is the issue of maternal and childhood health. After making incredible strides since 2010, the Every Woman Every Child initiative (EWEC) is now gearing up to for the post-2015 agenda to end all preventable maternal deaths and the deaths of children and adolescents around the world.
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Protest against Australian mandatory detention policy in 2011 / Photo by John Englart
Why Australia is Accepting So Few Refugees
As Europe struggles to find solutions to the ongoing Mediterranean refugee crisis, countries further afield are also struggling with their responses. Across the Atlantic, the US and Canada have both offered settlement plans for Syrian refugees while across the Indian Ocean, Australia is also asking tough questions about what its policy should be in the face of a global refugee crisis.
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Refugees vs. Migrants? The Word Choice Matters
What’s in a name? That is a question journalists, politicians and policymakers are asking themselves in addressing the Mediterranean refugee crisis. Although the terms “refugee” and “migrant” are often used interchangeably, the terms have very different meanings and attach different rights and responsibilities. As a result, it is important to understand what we are talking about when discussing how to deal with the crisis.
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Refugees seeking shade at detention center in Greece
Photo by Giula Bertoluzzi and Eleonora Vio / IRIN
How Europe is Making the Refugee Crisis Even Worse
As Greece continues to capture headlines over the most recent economic bailout and its potential to still derail the Eurozone, another crisis is unfolding in the country. As thousands of refugees pour into Greece in search of the safety of the EU, their numbers and the inability of Greece to cope is setting off a chain reaction that could result in a far bigger political crisis down the line.
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