The latest Refugee status determination (RSD) Updates include:
- UNHCR, refugee advocates warn of a government crackdown on migrants in Malaysia
- Wall Street Journal (USA) column condemns UNHCR for rejecting North Korean asylum-seekers
- Statistical update on UNHCR’s RSD work: More asylum-seekers in Egypt, Malaysia, Cameroon, while backlogs shrink in Pakistan and Yemen.
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The UK Guardian reports that the British government has failed to investigate properly UN Security Council allegations that British companies helped to perpetuate the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to a report by an all-party parliamentary group. In 2002 a UN panel of experts said that high-level political, military and business networks were pillaging gold, diamonds, timber, and coltan, a metal found in mobile phones and computers, to enrich individuals and fund various warring factions. Visit http://www.appggreatlakes.org/cgi-bin/site/index.cgi to download the full report, or read The Guardian article by clicking on the link above.

Days after an 18-day ceasefire between the Ugandan government and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) expired on 22 February, the rebels have killed and maimed more than 30 people, officials told IRIN on Monday. The Ugandan army spokesman in the northern region, Paddy Ankunda, told IRIN suspected LRA insurgents had killed at least 24 people in several districts since the truce ended. Last Thursday, Ankunda added, the rebels sliced off the lips of eight women.

The European Union and its member states should press for Nigeria to hand over former Liberian president Charles Taylor to the U.N.-backed court for war crimes in Sierra Leone, Human Rights Watch said. The European Parliament has passed a resolution calling on the European Union and its member states to take immediate action to bring about Taylor's appearance before the Special Court for Sierra Leone. The Special Court indicted Charles Taylor on 17 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in contributing to the death, rape, abduction, and mutilation of thousands of civilians during Sierra Leone's civil war from 1991 to 2002. Forced from power in August 2003, the former Liberian president is currently in exile in Nigeria.

Algerian authorities have debarred a delegation of the International Union for Human Rights Associations from visiting the country by sending it back from the Algiers International Airport. The joint delegation from the IUHRA, the European-Mediterranean Network for Human Rights, and the Cairo-based Human Rights Research Institute was denied access to visit Algeria.

Refugees are continuing to arrive in western Uganda from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Local authorities in Kanungo District have reported the arrival of 177 people in Ishasha, on the shores of Lake Edward, which forms the natural border with DRC. This is the largest reported influx at Ishasha for more than a month. The newcomers, many of them in poor health, said they had fled fighting in their villages in the eastern DRC province of North Kivu. UNHCR will be transferring this new group to a permanent settlement for Congolese refugees.

Among points of interest raised during the discussion were the importance of examining the situation of minorities and vulnerable groups in terms of genocide; the promotion and dissemination of a culture of tolerance worldwide; the role of education campaigns against racial hatred; the strengthening and promoting of national norms and encouraging specific laws on eliminating racial discrimination; and the role of the media in order to promote peace building. A speaker noted that often the lack of political will resulted in too little too late and therefore the focus must lie on preventing human rights violations before they occurred.

At the Hal Far refugee camp in Malta, refugees from Africa and other parts of the world are treated according to the letter of the law on refugees. But without social integration into Maltese society, they have no hope of ever living normal lives. International protection, therefore, is not only about receiving refugees and acknowledging their status, but also about integrating them into the host country and society and finding durable solutions without which the protection granted might become meaningless.

One effect of the HIV epidemic in South Africa has been increasing numbers of orphans and of households headed by children. This article from the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand argues that laws which currently prevent child headed households from accessing benefits violate the country's Constitution. It provides a background on child headed households and the South African legal approach towards families, and then examines constitutional obligations on the rights to equality and social security, and children's socio-economic rights, in order to analyse how these obligations relate to the provision of child support grants to child headed households.

Tanzanian foreign minister Jakaya Kikwete has denied accusations by the UN and humanitarian agencies that his government is adopting an increasingly harsh stance towards refugees on its territory. He said Tanzania was still accommodative of refugees and was not planning to expel refugees from Burundi, Congo and Rwanda who make up the bulk of the nearly half-a-million refugees in Tanzania.

As Zambia prepares to repatriate the last of the Angolan refugees on its soil by the end of 2005, the fate of thousands of Congolese refugees, sheltered in camps throughout the country, remains unclear. Zambia hosts an estimated 55,000 Congolese refugees, most of whom fled the country at the height of civil strife in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2000. In Kala refugee camp, some 45 km from the DRC-Zambia border, sentiment about returning home ranges between confidence and uncertainty.

President Mwai Kibaki has pleaded with donors for more time to fight corruption, saying the war against graft was on course. He said the Government had taken firm steps to deal with corruption by establishing institutions to combat the vice. The process of investigating and prosecuting culprits is slow, the President said, but this did not mean the Government has reneged its pledge of zero tolerance to corruption.

Acknowledging the need for a monitoring and reporting mechanism to track the recruitment of child soldiers and other children's rights violations, the United Nations Security Council said last week it has started considering the proposal for such an instrument from Secretary-General Kofi Annan. In a statement read by Foreign Minister Rogatien Biaou of Benin, which holds the Council presidency for February, at the end of a day-long debate the 15-member body said it was working on a new resolution to "take forward the implementation of its previous resolutions." Link to UN press release at http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2005/sc8319.doc.htm

New eyewitness accounts from Darfur of rapes, torture and mutilation by government-backed militias underscore how the U.N. Security Council must take urgent action to protect civilians and punish the perpetrators, Human Rights Watch says. Last week, eyewitnesses in South Darfur told Human Rights Watch how government-backed Janjaweed militia attacked villages in the Labado area in December and January, and singled out young women and girls for rape. Male relatives who protested were beaten, stripped naked, tied to trees and forced to watch the rape of the women and girls. In some cases, the men were then branded with a hot knife as a mark of their humiliation.

A 500-km long electrified fence officially aims to block the mixing of herds on common pasture, but some hope it will also keep out the thousands of Zimbabweans escaping poverty at home, who sneak cross the border looking for work in more prosperous Botswana. An estimated 36,000 illegal migrants were deported last year alone and, with xenophobia now firmly on the rise, Zimbabweans have become the target of a growing vigilante movement.

This Forced Migration Review paper explores the role that education can play as a protection mechanism in and after emergencies. The article notes that, based on work by Save the Children exploring the practical connections between education and protection in several conflict-affected countries, parents feel safer if children are in school rather than out. Education lessens the chance that the child will be recruited, exploited or exposed to other risks. In practical terms, education structures can play a more protective role in children’s lives.

Some of the last remaining refugees who fled the civil war in Somalia during the 1990s have begun returning home from Ethiopia, the UN's refugee agency (UNHCR) said.The refugees were from Aisha refugee camp, located in eastern Ethiopia, which UNHCR hopes to close by the middle of the year. Currently, there are 116,000 refugees in Ethiopia - the majority of whom are from Sudan. UNHCR has organised the repatriation of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Ethiopia to Somalia and expects an increase in the coming years.

The University for Peace of the United Nations (UPEACE) is pleased to announce that applications are open for the Master’s in Environmental Security and Peace, which will be launched in September 2005 at UPEACE headquarters in Costa Rica. The Master’s in Environmental Security and Peace is designed to train skilled and motivated people who fully understand these complex issues and their inter-linkages, and who can undertake high quality research and can develop and implement sound management and policy decisions to strengthen environmental security, promote environmental peacemaking and build the foundations for peace worldwide.

The Rotary Foundation is now accepting applications for the Rotary World Peace Scholarship. Successful candidates would pursue a master's level degree in international studies, peace studies, and conflict resolution at one of the eight Rotary partner universities: University of Bradford, University of California, Berkeley; Duke University; University of North Carolina; Sciences Po; International Christian University; University of Queensland; Universidad Del Salvador.

The Egyptian state security forces arbitrarily arrested thousands of people and tortured detainees in the wake of the Taba Hilton bombing in October, Human Rights Watch said in a report released this week. Four months later, as many as 2,400 detainees are still being held incommunicado. The 48 page report, ‘Mass Arrests and Torture in Sinai’ documents how, in the weeks and months after the bombing that killed 30 people in the resort town of Taba, the State Security Investigation agency conducted mass arrests in northern Sinai without a warrant or judicial order as required by Egyptian law.