Tag Archives : refugee camps

According to Robert Van den Berg, a spokesman for Oxfam International in the Horn of Africa, “Somalis flee one of the world’s most brutal conflicts and a desperate drought, only to end up in unimaginable conditions in camps that are barely fit for humans.” Oxfam also asserts that ‘the international community has failed the refugees who [...]

For the lowly ‘farmers and herders fleeing the war between the Yemeni army and Houthi Shia rebels that broke out last month in the country’s mountainous north,’ the noise of heavy artillery, mortar attacks, and aerial bombardment have become familiar sounds. These people have become refugees, temporarily sheltered far away from their villages [...]

There have been other genocides apart from the one in Sudan. There had been systematic killing of populations in Germany, Cambodia, and Rwanda. The difference with the genocide in Darfur is that Omar al-Bashir, the perpetrator of the genocide, carries on his mockery of the justice system, ignores his arrest warrant for crimes against humanity and war [...]

There have been reports of young Tamil women found with their throats slit, as well as abduction by paramilitary groups of Tamil children who have been suspected of being former Tamil Tigers child soldiers. Other refugees have reported the disappearances of some children from the camps. International humanitarian organizations have also observed that [...]

For the hundreds of thousands displaced by the fighting in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, there has been very little actual assistance from both international NGOs and the Pakistani government itself. The numbers are mind-boggling: 200,000 additional internally displaced persons (IDPs) pouring in everyday into refugee camps. Pakistani [...]

After days of speculation as to whether LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran is dead or still alive, the Tamil Tigers have finally admitted that their leader died on May 17. Last week, the Sri Lanka government released photos of Prabhakaran’s body but pro-Tamil websites insisted that he was ‘alive and safe.’ Now, for the first time, a confirmation [...]

Tens of thousands of Tamil children were displaced along with their families due to the intense fighting between Sri Lankan troops and the guerrilla group Tamil Tigers that saw the bloody defeat of the latter. These children are among the thousands now packed in refugee camps that have been observed as virtual prison camps. International human rights [...]

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met this Saturday with Sri Lanka government leaders on the situation of the 280,000 people displaced by war. Ban was also scheduled to visit several camps for the displaced refugees in the north. “After winning the war of 26 years this week, the government of Sri Lanka needs to win the peace solution to the conflict,” [...]

The victory over the Tamil Tigers leaves questions about the future of Sri Lanka and the condition of a quarter of a million refugees. Several humanitarian agencies have asked the government to ensure access to refugee camps controlled by government troops who suspect that rebels are hiding among the civilians. Gordon Weiss, spokesman for the UN in [...]

Mindanao, the second largest island in the Philippines, has been a battleground between government forces and radical Islamists for four decades. Recent massive fighting erupted after the ancestral domain agreement for an expanded Muslim land in Mindanao was judged illegal by the Supreme Court of the Philippines. The Muslims are deemed not rightful [...]