Africa

A selection of the week's best photos from across the continent and beyond.

Li Ying's brilliant volley earns China victory over debutants South Africa, who face elimination from the Women's World Cup.

South Africa's Caster Semenya can continue to compete pending her appeal, after a Swiss court rejects an IAAF request to re-impose its new rules.

The charges come as the military admits mistakes as pro-democracy protesters were forcibly dispersed.

Rashid Kassim allegedly attacked Fatuma Gedi for not allocating money to his constituency.

Large numbers of people are bypassing immigration controls as they exit Venezuela. Credit: Tomer Urwicz

By Tomer Urwicz and Liliana Arias Salgado
CÚCUTA, Colombia, Jun 13 2019 (IPS)

Not long ago, 15-year-old Nelsmar attended a middle-class school in central Venezuela. That was before her family was uprooted by the economic and humanitarian crisis in her country, which has pushed nearly 3.9 million persons to migrate or flee, according to recent estimates of the Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela.

Nelsmar’s family made the move over a year ago. They walked for eight days, and spent the rest of the journey traveling by bus, before reaching the border with Colombia. When they arrived in the border city of Cúcuta, she thought the worst was over – but she was wrong.

For weeks, Nelsmar slept either on the street or in a boarding house with shared toilet facilities. Her family struggled to access shampoo, sanitary napkins or even a flashlight to light the way at night.

“When you don’t have the means to bathe or change clothes, or you don’t have enough money, something as natural as one’s menstrual period becomes a real challenge,” Nelsmar told UNFPA.

There are 1.2 million Venezuelan migrants and refugees living in Colombia, and large numbers continue to pour over the border. Many bypass immigration controls.

The mass displacement has led to a heightened risk of sexual violence and exploitation. According to the organization CEPAZ, some 37 per cent of migrant women have reportedly experienced some form of violence. Many migrants are also in need of health services.

Families of migrants and refugees are crossing the border in large numbers. Credit: Tomer Urwicz

UNFPA is working with the government and humanitarian partners to help women receive reproductive health care, including access to maternal health care, contraceptives and other critical services.

UNFPA is also distributing dignity kits, which contain hygiene supplies including sanitary napkins, soap and shampoo, as well as information on where to find health and psychosocial support services. And UNFPA is also organizing workshops on gender-based violence, helping vulnerable migrants identify abuse and learn where to find help.

“The aim of our work was to provide opportunities for the discussion of sexual and reproductive rights, prevent gender-based violence and sexual violence, and share information about the places victims of aggression can go to for care,” explained Dildar Salamanca, a UNFPA field coordinator in Cúcuta, the Colombian city that has received the largest number of Venezuelan migrants in recent years.

In Cúcuta and the city of Maicao, some 2,300 dignity kits have been distributed, and 2,600 women have been reached with contraceptives. More than 2,300 women and adolescents have received information about sexual and reproductive health and gender-based violence.

UNFPA is supporting sexual and reproductive health services, including maternal health care. Credit: Tomer Urwicz

Despite the extraordinary challenges, Mr. Salamanca says he has seen that “migrant women and adolescent girls are extremely strong, resilient and capable of rising above the hostility of life.”

Nelsmar is one such example.

Today, she is living in Cúcuta, where she attends a new school and watches over her siblings when her parents work. She has even joined a group of volunteers who meet on Saturdays to work on youth issues.

Asked how she feels about her situation, she replied firmly, “Well, my dreams are still intact.”

The post Dignity & Strength for Venezuelan Refugees & Migrants in Colombia appeared first on Inter Press Service.

She and her grandson are the first in the country to die since an outbreak in neighbouring DR Congo.

Cyclone Idai’s aftermath in Mozambique. Credit: Denis Onyodi:IFRC/DRK/Climate Centre

By Edinah Masiyiwa
HARARE, Jun 13 2019 (IPS)

In late March Cyclone Idai carved a path of devastation across Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Malawi.  It was the deadliest cyclone to hit the region in more than a century, others have even referred to it as “Africa’s Hurricane Katrina.” More than 1,000 people were killed. Many more saw their homes, food crops, and even entire villages washed away.

My country, Zimbabwe, has been receiving aid from all over the world. Our citizens also have taken it upon themselves to donate toward the needs of those who survived. We may be feeling like things are getting better. But in fact, for many women and girls, they are getting worse.

We are experiencing an aspect of natural disasters that rarely receives the attention it deserves: the fact simply being female puts one at a far greater risk of suffering harm.

A recent report by the UN Resident Coordinator in Zimbabwe observed that at least 15,000 women and girls in the areas affected by Idai are at risk of gender-based violence linked to disruptions caused by the storm.

Edinah Masiyiwa

For example, there was a report of a 14-year-old girl who suffered a sexual assault in Chimanimani, a community in eastern Zimbabwe hit hard by the cyclone. This one case might be just the tip of the iceberg as there are women walking long distances to get to places where food and other aid is being distributed and being forced to sleep in long queues.

There also are concerns of women and girls being asked to provide sex in exchange for access to aid. Meanwhile, a UN Flash appeal report has noted the lack of privacy and lighting in camps for displaced persons, which can increase the risk of violence and transactional sex for female storm victims.

This situation is, unfortunately, not unique to Cyclone Idai.

UN Women has highlighted that there is a rise in violence, including sexual violence, against women and girls in the aftermath of a natural disaster. Just standing in a queue for food aid and other support leave women more vulnerable to sexual exploitation and, consequently, HIV infections.

Also, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), in crisis situations one in five women of childbearing age are likely to be pregnant.  There is an urgent need to ensure access to reproductive health services. Lack of services such as prenatal care and assisted deliveries, puts these women at an increased risk of life-threatening complications. Suspensions in services that provide prevention and treatment for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections also have a greater impact on women.

Right after the Idai hit, the immediate focus of aid efforts was understandably on providing food and shelter. It is now time to broaden that focus to include interventions that protect women and girls from violence, sexual exploitation, and the loss of critically needed health services

Right after the Idai hit, the immediate focus of aid efforts was understandably on providing food and shelter. It is now time to broaden that focus to include interventions that protect women and girls from violence, sexual exploitation, and the loss of critically needed health services.

For example, all actors on the ground responding to the cyclone must ensure they integrate training programs that include efforts to mitigate the risk of gender-based violence. There should be clear procedures for reporting any cases of violence and measures to protect victims who step forward from suffering retaliation.

Zimbabwe’s Civil Protection Unit also should devote resources to helping women retain access to reproductive health services. Pregnant women should be screened for complications and those at high risk—such as women who need to deliver via caesarian section—should be transferred to hospitals where emergency care is available from skilled health workers.

Women will need access to contraception to avoid unwanted pregnancies, which ultimately lead to unsafe abortions.  Also, at a minimum, there should be a system in place for the timely delivery of aid so that women are not forced to sleep in a long queue just to receive assistance. And any temporary shelter should include security guards to help protect women and girls from attacks.

A natural disaster can impose terrible hardships and cyclones like Idai could become more common as climate change increases the risk of weather extremes. But while we cannot prevent these events from occurring, we can ensure that, for women and girls, storms like Idai do not continue to rage in the form of sexual violence and other neglect that greatly compounds their trauma.

 

Edinah Masiyiwa is a women’s rights activist.  She is the Executive Director of Women’s Action Group and an 2019 Aspen Institute New Voices Fellow.

The post The Storm is Over, But in Southern Africa, Cyclone Idai Continues to Rage for Women and Girls appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Emily Thampoe
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 13 2019 (IPS)

While cities around the world have been providing safe havens to refugees, a few US cities in the Upstate New York region have been integrating refugees and asylum-seekers into their communities.

Specifically, the towns of Utica, Buffalo and Syracuse, are welcoming refugees to live and work. These towns share a border with Canada and so have been allowing asylum-seekers into their communities for many years.

As of 2018, there are 69,058 immigrant residents in the Buffalo Metro Area, according to a report by New American Economy.

This is especially meaningful as immigration policies in the United States have become stricter since the Trump administration took office in 2016.

Eva Hassett, the Executive Director of the International Institute of Buffalo, told IPS: “The Trump administration has lowered the admissions ceiling for refugees coming into the US drastically. There are far lower numbers of refugees arriving in Buffalo, in New York State, in the US – historically low numbers for a program that started in 1980”.

The aforementioned towns fall into the category of “Cities of Light,” as coined by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

This refers to places around the world that have accepted refugees in a warm manner and have provided opportunities and resources that will be beneficial to both the communities and to the refugees who settle in them.

This is just one of the ways that refugees are able to lead lives that are safer than what they would experience in their home countries.

Since 1950, the UNHCR has been aiding in providing assistance to refugees, asylum-seekers, internally displaced and stateless people.

According to the UNHCR, common solutions for refugees include voluntary repatriation (returning to countries of origin), resettlement in another nation and integration into the host community.

Liz Throssell, the UNHCR’s Global Spokesperson for the Americas and Europe, told IPS: “For refugees who cannot go home, integration into their local community can provide a durable solution, allowing them the chance to build a new life. Integration is often a complex and gradual process, with legal, economic, social and cultural dimensions”.

“It places considerable demands placed on both the individual and the host community. But when refugees are integrated, this can bring benefits all round, as the person is able to contribute economically and socially to the community,” she declared.

With approximately 1.1 million refugees becoming citizens in the countries in which they claimed asylum, the good that Cities of Light do is evident.

These cities have given refugees a way to feel safe and welcome through bestowing governmental provisions and ways to maintain their cultural identity while being helped to adjust to a new environment.

Globally-known Cities of Light include Jakarta, Indonesia; Kigali, Rwanda; Vienna, Austria; São Paulo, Brazil; Erbil, Iraq; Altena, Germany and Gdansk, Poland.

Throssell said, “An increasing number of cities are working to empower refugees and embrace the opportunities they bring. Mayors, local authorities, social enterprises and citizens groups are on the frontlines of the global refugee response, fostering social cohesion, and protecting and assisting the forcibly displaced in their midst.”

In Buffalo, benefits have included, “Affordability, welcoming community, pro-rights and inclusion, lots of support infrastructure, good jobs and cities are easy to get around,” according to Hassett.

Similar social and economic effects have been seen in Utica, New York as well.

Although the number of refugees allowed into the United States has been noticeably cut down to 30,000 this year due, in part, to immigration policies under the Trump administration, refugees are still moving into New York state.

Hassett notes, “Refugee is an immigration status; it is conferred upon an individual by the US Department of State (DOS). Refugees arrive documented and work authorized, they are screened and greenlighted before they arrive by DOS, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). They will naturalize to be legal permanent residents.”

The US refugee resettlement program (officially called Reception and Placement) was established in 1980 and provides 90 days of support and financial support to refugees entering the US under the R&P program. This is the program whose ceiling the President has lowered so drastically”.

This sort of migration is possible as residents of the region are promoting job placements, English language services and housing services in order to direct refugees who are already living in the United States to the state.

Much of this advertising is done through video campaigns by resettlement agencies, Facebook groups, WhatsApp chats and newspapers that are run by refugees.

While this will help give opportunity, it also allows New York to expand its population and the size of its workforce.

Having more people move into towns like Utica, Buffalo and Syracuse has turned areas that once were barren or unsafe, into areas that are bustling with life and culture.

The post Cities of Light are Providing Safe Havens to Refugees appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The presenter says she's willing to learn, but only had good intentions with her work in Africa.

63-year-old Catherine Mathebe is fighting to reduce obesity in South Africa after exercise changed her life.

A social media campaign is being waged to get people to fight their fear of Africa's only one-party state.

BBC Sport Africa and Josimar magazine reveal some of the background behind Caf President Ahmad's questioning last week.

Kenyan marathon runner Felix Kirwa is suspended from competition for nine months after testing positive for a banned stimulant.

Initial reports said nearly 100 people had been killed in an attack on a Dogon village.

The head of a major medical charity says the spread of Ebola in the DRC shows no signs of stopping.

By Syed Neaz Ahmad FRSA
Jun 12 2019 (IPS-Partners)

They are thought to be the world’s most persecuted refugees. It is also argued that they are one of the most forgotten too. Some five year ago I saw and met hundreds of inmates from Burma in a Jeddah prison. Thousands of Burmese Muslims from Arakan – often called Rohingyas – were offered a safe haven in Saudi Arabia by King Faisal but with the change in rulers in Saudi Arabia the rules underwent a change too. A permanent abode of peace that was offered to these uprooted Arakanese is now nothing less than a chamber of horrors.

A Rohingya woman and her child at a refugee camp in Bangladesh. Credit: Kamrul Hasan/IPS

There are some three thousand families of Burmese Muslims in Makkah and Jeddah prisons awaiting their deportation. Women and children are held in separate prisons nearby. The only contact the men have with their wives and children is through mobile phones and clandestine courier service provided by hawkers of food & water – aided & abetted by the prison officers for a small fee!

But the interesting question is: Where will they be sent? Burma (Myanmar) doesn’t want them. Bangladesh with a large population, porous border and poor economy doesn’t have the inclination or the ability to handle a refugee population of this size. The Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are having a rough time as it is. Pakistan’s offer to accept part of the Rohingyas – awaiting deportation in Saudi prisons – is seen as mere a diplomatic exercise. Against the background of Islamabad’s treatment of some 300,000 stranded Pakistanis – living a miserable life in camps in Bangladesh – senior Rohingya inmates look at Pakistani overture with suspicion.

But who are these people called Burmese Muslims, Arakanese or Rohingyas? The people who call themselves Rohingyas are the Muslims of the Mayu Frontier area, present-day Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships of Arakan (Rakhine) State, a province isolated in the western part of the country across the river Naf which forms the boundary between Myanmar and Bangladesh.

After Myanmar had gained independence, a concentration of nearly ninety per cent of the area’s population – of Islamic faith formed an ethnic and religious minority group on the western fringe of the republic. In the beginning they favoured a policy of joining Pakistan. This policy faded away when they could not gain support from the government of Pakistan. Later they began to call for the establishment of an autonomous region instead.

Their insistence to call themselves ‘the Muslims of Arakan’ and adoption of Urdu as their national language indicated their inclination towards the sense of collective identity that the Muslims of Indian subcontinent showed before the partition of India (Department of Defence Service Archives, Rangoon: CD 1016/10/11).

In June 1951 All-Arakan Muslim Conference was held in village Alethangyaw, and ‘The Charter of the Constitutional Demands of the Arakani Muslims’ was published. It called for ‘the balance of power between the Muslims and the Maghs (Arakanese), two major races of Arakan.’ The demand of the charter read: North Arakan should be immediately formed a free Muslim State as equal constituent Member of the Union of Burma like the Shan State, the Karenni State, the Chin Hills, and the Kachin Zone with its own Militia, Police and Security Forces under the General Command of the Union (Department of the Defence Service Archives, Rangoon: DR 1016/10/13).

It is noteworthy that in the charter these peoples are mentioned as the Muslims of Arakan and not Rohingyas. The word ‘Rohingya’, it is claimed, was first suggested by Abdul Gaffar, an MP from Buthidaung, in his article ‘The Sudeten Muslims’,

During his campaign for the 1960 elections, Myanmar Prime Minister U Nu promised statehood for Arakanese and Mon people. When he came to power the plans for the formation of the Arakan and Mon states were forgotten. Naturally, the Muslim members of parliament from Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships denounced the plan and called for the establishment of a Rohingya state. (SOAS bulletin of Burma research, 2005)

In 1973, Ne Win’s Revolutionary Council sought public opinion for drafting a new constitution. The Muslims from the Mayu Frontier submitted a proposal to the Constitution Commission for the creation of a separate Muslim state or at least a division for them (Kyaw Zan Tha, 1995).

‘The proposal was turned down. When elections were held under the 1974 Constitution the Bengali Muslims from the Mayu Frontier Area were denied the right to elect their representatives to the “Pyithu Hlut-taw” (People’s Congress). After the end of the Independence war in Bangladesh some arms and ammunitions flowed into the hands of the young Muslim leaders from Mayu Frontier. On 15 July 1972 a congress of all Rohingya parties was held at the Bangladeshi border to call for the Rohingya National Liberation’ (Mya Win, 1992).

Myanmar’s successive military regimes persisted in a policy of denying citizenship to most Bengalis, especially in the frontier area. They stubbornly grasped the 1982 Citizenship Law that allowed only the ethnic groups who had lived in Burma before the First Anglo-Burmese War that began in 1824 as the citizens of the country. By this law those Muslims had been treated as aliens in the land they have inhabited for more than a century.

‘According to the 1983 census Muslims in Arakan constituted 24.3 percent and they were categorized as Bangladeshi, while the Arakanese Buddhists formed 67.8 percent of the population of the Arakan (Rakhine) State’ (Immigration and Manpower Department 1987:I-14).

‘In the 1988 Democracy movement Muslims raised the Rohingya issue. Subsequently when the military junta allowed the registration of the political parties they asked for their parties to be recognized under the name “Rohingya.” Their demand was turned down and so they formed the National Democratic Party for Human rights (NDPHR) that won in four constituencies in 1990 elections – eleven candidates of the Arakan League for Democracy (ALD) were elected to the legislature. However, the Elections Commission abolished both the ALD and the NDPHR in 1991. Some of the party members had to go into exile.’

In 1978 the Burmese junta created a situation for the Arakanese Muslims that forced them to leave their country for safety elsewhere. However, those who crossed over to East Pakistan or Thailand were never considered as welcome visitors. The Myanmar government has consistently refused to recognise the Rohingyas as citizens, who have been forced to flee their homeland since 1978 – to neighbouring Thailand and as far as Japan.

According to Amnesty International, in 1978 over 200,000 Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh, following the Burmese army’s Operation Nagamin. Most – it is claimed by Yangon – were eventually repatriated, but around 15,000 refused to return. In 1991, a second wave of about a quarter of a million Rohingyas fled Myanmar to Bangladesh

The Malaysianinsider.com reports that in January, shocking news emerged of the mistreatment by Thai security forces of over a thousand ‘boat people’ travelling from Bangladesh and Myanmar to Thailand and Malaysia. Most of them were Rohingyas. They drifted at sea for weeks, without sufficient food and water, after having been beaten, towed out, and abandoned. The Indian navy rescued about 400 in different batches; Indonesia rescued a further 391. The rest were reported missing, presumed dead.

In Bangladesh, it is said that there are over 250,000 Rohingyas, some 35,000 of them in overcrowded camps.

There are a further 13,600 registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Malaysia (although there are thousands yet unregistered), an estimated 3,000 in Thailand, and unknown numbers in India.

All of these countries have not ratified the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, its 1967 Protocol, and the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.

Most Rohingyas in Asia are considered irregular migrants. Without official papers, they are often subject to arrest, detention, punishment for immigration offences and deportation. Forced to work in the informal labour market, they are often exploited and cheated.

In Malaysia, where some Rohingyas have resided since the early 1990s, they continue to be rounded up in immigration operations, whipped, and handed over to human traffickers on the Thai-Malaysia border. Some have been deported multiple times; some have ‘disappeared’ along the way. Around 730,000 remain in Myanmar, most of whom live in the Arakan state. The State Peace and Development Council, the military regime that rules Myanmar, continues to disavow Rohingyas as citizens.

Consequently, the Rohingyas are still subject to forced labour, forced eviction, and land confiscation. Strict restrictions are placed on their freedom of movement, freedom to marry, and freedom to own property. Many who return from abroad have been imprisoned for years, punished for crossing the border ‘illegally’. Conditions in the Arakan state continue to deteriorate, increasing the likelihood of further outflows into neighbouring countries.

The UNHCR has been allowed limited access inside Burma. The UN agency claims that it has helped more than 200,000 to get better healthcare and some 35,000 children to education. But this kind of help is merely a drop in the ocean. It’s an irony that countries in Asia and elsewhere – particularly Muslim countries – have shown little or no desire to help ease the situation.

The UNHCR spokesman in Asia, Kitty Mckinsey says: ‘No country has really taken up their cause. Look at the Palestinians, for example, they have a lot of countries on their side. The Rohingyas do not have any friends in the world.’

Obviously, an immediate and sympathetic solution is needed; otherwise, it can plunge Rohingyas into deeper suffering, cause resistance amongst host societies, and fail at stemming the onward movement of Rohingyas into the region.

The late King Faisal’s decision to offer them a permanent abode in Saudi Arabia was a gesture that reflected his noble approach to the problems faced by Muslims in other countries. However, later Saudi rulers have found the Burmese Muslims a thorn in their side. With strict regulation on their employment and movement within the Kingdom Saudi police find them easy targets for extortion and torture.

Although Myanmar Muslims have showed collective political interest for more than five decades since the country gained independence, their political and cultural rights have not been recognised. On the contrary, the demand for the recognition of their rights sounds like a direct challenge to the right of autonomy and the myth of survival for the Arakanese majority in their homeland.

It is said that there are some 250,000 Burmese Muslims in Saudi Arabia – majority living in Makkah Al-Mukarramah’s slums Naqqasha and Kudai. They sell vegetables, sweep streets, work as porters, carpenters, unskilled labour, and those fortunate enough become drivers.

The correct number of the Rohingya refugees living in Asian countries – Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan and Saudi Arabia – is anybody’s guess. But this diaspora of refugees attracts human traffickers. It is not uncommon for poor Rohingyas to marry off their very young – sometimes underage – daughters to old and affluent Saudis in the hope of getting ‘official favours’. But with a high rate of divorce in Saudi Arabia in the Saudi society this hasn’t worked for many. Rohingya wives of Saudi men are not easily accepted in the Saudi society and they have to survive – as second class wives – on the periphery of the social infrastructure.

Those whom I met in Jeddah prisons seem to have accepted the situation as fait accompli. But it is unfair that these innocent people be made to suffer in a country which is considered the citadel of Islam that houses the two holiest places of worship on earth and the rulers style themselves as Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.

King Abdullah is not only the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques; he is also the Custodian of those living in that country, including Rohingya refugees who were invited by one of his illustrious predecessors. Will Saudi Arabia live up to its promises and expectations? Dhaka – with friendly ties with Saudi Arabia – must impress upon Riyadh to find an early solution to this thorn in the side of humanity.

(Syed Neaz Ahmad, who taught at Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, is a London-based journalist. He writes for British, Arab & Bangladeshi press. He anchors a celebrity chatshow on NTV Europe).

The post Burmese Muslims: Still looking for a permanent home! appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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