DHAKA: Camps housing more than a million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are facing “great risk” of a landslide, according to a recent UN Development Programme (UNDP) report.
The Rapid Environmental Impact Assessment report suggests that the recent influx of Rohingya Muslim refugees fleeing persecution in Myanmar has had a hugely negative impact on forest land in Cox’s Bazar, with thousands of hectares destroyed for the construction of camps and for much-needed fuel for fires.
“The establishment of makeshift camps in Ukhia and Teknaf sub-districts, close to several unique environmentally sensitive areas, threatens global biodiversity and causes the degradation of critical natural habitats,” the report claimed.
Around 1,485 hectares of forest land in Ukhia, Whykong, and Teknaf has so far been affected, and more land will be degraded if the practice continues, it warned, adding that the effect of the influx on biodiversity “may become irreversible if not properly managed.”
The report identified 28 risk factors, rated from “critical” to “low,” for local residents and refugees. The list included landslides, loss of biodiversity, deforestation, contamination of surface water, and the rapid exhaustion of underground water supplies.
The UNDP has submitted the report to Bangladesh’s Ministry of the Environment, and authorities are now assessing ways to mitigate the impact of the refugees’ arrival.
According to the report, the area is now so badly damaged that heavy rainfall or strong winds may cause landslides in the area, threatening the refugees’ lives.
However, the report also warns that refugees may be at risk from their host community, as diminishing resources are likely to cause tension and social conflict.
Saiful Islam, deputy director of the Department of Environment at Cox’s Bazar, told Arab News: “The region is located on a fault line, so a small deviation of the plate under the earth could create a massive earthquake, making landslides highly likely. Since it is a densely populated area, the number of casualties would likely be very high.”
The Bangladeshi government has already adopted a forestation plan in some parts of the roadside hills from which the refugees were shifted to a different area, said Islam. But that program can only begin during the next monsoon season.
The deforestation has also affected the natural habitats of the area, leading to an increased number of wildlife attacks. During the past four months, at least eight wild elephant attacks on the refugee camps have been reported.
“There are four elephant tracks in this area, but since the elephants’ habitat has been squeezed, they come down to the locality in search of food and attack people,” said Mohammad Nikarujjaman, commissioner of Ukhia sub-district.
“Now the conflict between wildlife and man has increased significantly.”
Nikarujjaman told Arab News that in the latest elephant attack, on Friday morning, killed one refugee and injured four others. Six makeshift houses were also destroyed.
A total of 12 refugees have reportedly been killed in separate elephant attacks since August.
Deforestation in Bangladesh puts Rohingya refugees at risk: UNDP
Deforestation in Bangladesh puts Rohingya refugees at risk: UNDP
UN scales back aid goals in Yemen and Somalia
- UN agencies are scaling back operations and staffing around the world as they grapple with big cuts in contributions from member states
UNITED NATIONS, United States: The United Nations announced Friday it is scaling back its humanitarian aid goals in Yemen and Somalia in the latest fallout from a drastic drop in funding from member states.
It said the cuts are putting millions of lives at risk around the world.
In January the UN launched an appeal for $2.4 billion to help 10.5 million people in war-torn Yemen this year, far below the 19.5 million people it deems as being in need of assistance.
But with funding down, the global body and its humanitarian aid partners established new priorities so as to be able to help at least the neediest people there.
The UN announced similar changes in strategy in Ukraine and Democratic Republic of Congo in recent weeks.
Now the focus in Yemen will be on 8.8 million people with a forecast budget of $1.4 billion, said Stephanie Tremblay, a spokeswoman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
In violent and unstable Somalia, an initial $1.4 billion plan to help 4.6 million people has also been trimmed back to $367 million for 1.3 million people, she said.
“This does not mean that there’s been a reduction in overall humanitarian needs and requirements,” Tremblay said.
She said huge funding cuts are forcing humanitarian aid programs to scale back, “putting millions of lives at risk across the world.”
“As in other crises, the consequence will be dire. If we fail to deliver, millions more people will be acutely hungry and lack access to clean water, education, protection and other essential services,” she added.
UN agencies are scaling back operations and staffing around the world as they grapple with big cuts in contributions from member states, in particular the United States under President Donald Trump.
Pro-Palestinian protesters, police clash in Basel during Eurovision
- Protesters clashed with police before Israel’s Eurovision entrant Yuval Raphael went on stage
BASEL: Pro-Palestinian demonstrators clashed with riot police in Basel as the Swiss city hosted the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday, according to AFP journalists at the scene.
Protesters demonstrating against Israel’s participation in the contest while it ramps up its war in Gaza clashed briefly with police in the center of the city shortly before Israel’s Eurovision entrant Yuval Raphael took to the stage at the St. Jakobshalle venue across town.
Civilians expelled to Rwanda by fighters
- UNHCR: ‘Returns of refugees to countries of origin must be voluntary’
GOMA: Armed fighters from the M23 group, which has taken control of eastern DR Congo’s key major town of Goma, on Saturday set about expelling thousands of people they say are illegals from Rwanda, witnesses said.
On Monday, the group’s military spokesman, Willy Ngoma, had presented to the media 181 men whom they referred to as “Rwandan subjects” illegally in the country at Goma’s main sports stadium.
All the men shown had ID papers from the DRC, which the M23 asserted were bogus.
An AFP reporter said the armed group had summarily burned the documents on the stadium pitch.
Several hundred women and children, relatives of those detained, joined them at the stadium aboard trucks chartered by the M23.
One of the men arrested, who gave his name only as Eric, had said on Monday that he was from Karenga, located in North Kivu, which is considered a stronghold of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR.
The FDLR is an armed group founded by former Rwandan Hutu leaders of the 1994 Tutsi genocide.
Early on Saturday, 360 people were loaded onto buses from Goma, Eujin Byun, said a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
The UNHCR stressed that “returns of refugees to their countries of origin must be safe, voluntary, and carried out with dignity, under international law.”
An AFP correspondent reported that the convoy crossed the border to Rubavu, in western Rwanda.
“We will do everything to reintegrate them into society, so that they have the same responsibilities and rights as other Rwandans,” said Prosper Mulindwa, mayor of Rubavu district.
The M23 and Kigali accuse Kinshasa of supporting the FDLR and have justified their offensive in eastern DRC by a need to neutralize that group.
Most of the families expelled by the M23 are from Karenga and had been prevented from returning there after the M23 took over Goma, according to security and humanitarian sources.
The sources said the families lived in a reception center for displaced persons in Sake, some 20 km from Goma.
In March, 20 suspected FDLR fighters, dressed in Congolese Armed Forces uniforms, were handed over to Rwandan authorities by the M23.
Kinshasa denounced the incident as a “crude fabrication” intended to discredit its army.
Gabon’s ousted President Bongo flies to Angola with wife and son
- The family’s release followed talks between Angolan President Joao Lourenco and Gabon’s new leader, Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema
LUANDA: Gabon’s former leader, Ali Bongo Ondimba, who was detained after being ousted in a 2023 coup, has been released and has gone to Angola with his family, the Angolan presidency said.
Bongo, whose family ruled Gabon for 55 years, had been under house arrest in the capital, Libreville, since being overthrown in August 2023.
His wife and son had also been in detention, accused of embezzling public funds.
A statement on the Angolan presidency’s Facebook page announcing the arrival of the Bongo family in the capital, Luanda, was accompanied by photographs showing the former leader being welcomed at an airport.
The “Bongo family has been released and has just arrived in Luanda,” it said.
The release of the family followed talks between Angolan President Joao Lourenço and Gabon’s new leader, Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, the statement said.
Lawyers for the Bongos in France said their release had been the “result of long efforts on both the judicial and diplomatic levels.
“After 20 months of arbitrary and cruel detention accompanied by torture, the family is finally reunited around the former president Ali Bongo,” they said in a statement.
But a prosecutor in Libreville said Bongo’s French-born wife Sylvia, 62, and son Noureddin, 33, had only been provisionally freed, awaiting a trial for alleged embezzlement.
Prosecutor Eddy Minang said the pair’s release “does not in any way interrupt the normal course of the proceedings, which will continue until a fair, transparent, equitable and timely trial is held.”
Oligui, a former junta leader, seized power in the August 2023 coup that ended the 55-year rule of the Bongo dynasty.
The general was sworn in earlier this month after winning 94.85 percent in an April 12 vote in which international observers signaled no major irregularities.
Oligui’s main rival, Alain-Claude Bilie By Nze, the last prime minister under Bongo, said the family’s release demonstrated that their detention “did not respect the framework of law and justice.
“President Oligui Nguema did not show clemency: He had to bow to international demands after what everyone understood to be an abuse of power,” he said.
Lawyers for Sylvia and Noureddin alleged they had suffered torture while in detention.
Several Gabonese news media reported recently that they had been moved from cells in an annex of the presidency to a family residence in Libreville.
A member of Gabon’s transitional parliament, Geoffroy Foumboula Libeka, said the move of the family “in the middle of the night and total silence” was “a real disgrace for the first days” of the new government. “Where is Gabon’s sovereignty?” he asked on social media.
The Bongo family’s release, he said, was “the price to pay” for the country’s reintegration into the African Union, which Angolan leader Lourenco currently heads.
The African Union announced on April 30 that it had lifted sanctions against Gabon, which was suspended from the organisation following the coup.
The country of 2.3 million people has endured high unemployment, regular power and water shortages, and heavy government debt despite its oil wealth.
The Gabon presidency announced on social media on May 12 that Lourenco had met Oligui in Libreville for talks focused “on strengthening bilateral cooperation, the smooth running of democratic elections marking the end of the transition in Gabon.”
They also discussed lifting sanctions following Gabon’s reintegration into the AU.
Bongo, 66, who is suspected to be in poor health, came to power in 2009, taking over from his father, Omar Bongo Ondimba, who ruled for 41 years.
In 2016, he was narrowly reelected for a second term by a few thousand votes, beating opposition challenger Jean Ping after a campaign marred by bloody clashes and allegations of fraud.
He suffered a stroke in October 2018 while on a visit to Saudi Arabia, and there was speculation about his health and fitness to govern when he returned home.
His public appearances were rare, and the times when he spoke live outside the confines of the presidential palace were rarer still.
Bongo ruled for 14 years until he was overthrown moments after being proclaimed the winner in a presidential election the army and opposition declared fraudulent.
Chad’s former prime minister and opposition leader arrested in clash probe
- Clashes between herders and farmers, who accuse herders of grazing livestock on their land, are common in the Central African country
N’DJAMENA, Chad: Chad’s former Prime Minister and opposition leader Succes Masra was arrested for his alleged involvement in a clash between herders and farmers in the country’s southwest a day earlier, the country’s prosecutor said.
Public prosecutor Oumar Mahamat Kedelaye said fighting on Thursday in Chad’s southwestern Logone Occidental province left 42 people dead and several homes burned. Clashes between herders and farmers, who accuse herders of grazing livestock on their land, are common in the Central African country.
The prosecutor said Masra is being investigated on charges of inciting hatred and revolt through social media posts that called on the population to arm themselves against a community in the area.
Other charges against the former prime minister include complicity in murder.
Masra’s Transformers party said earlier in a statement that their leader was “kidnapped” from his residence and expressed “deep concern over this brutal action carried out outside any known judicial procedures and in blatant violation of the civil rights guaranteed by the constitution.”
Ndolembai Sade Njesada, the party’s vice president, released a video appearing to show armed men in uniforms escorting Masra out of a residential building.
Masra is one of the leading figures opposed to President Mahamat Idriss Deby, who seized power after his father, who spent three decades in power, was killed fighting rebels in 2021.
In 2022, Masra fled Chad after the military government suspended his party and six others in a clampdown on protests against Deby’s decision to extend his time in power by two more years.
More than 60 people were killed in the protests, which the government condemned as “an attempted coup.”
Following his return from exile, Masra was appointed prime minister in January 2024 in a bid to appease tensions with the opposition, four months before the presidential election.
Deby won the election, but the results were contested by the opposition, which had claimed victory and alleged electoral fraud.
Masra resigned from his role as prime minister shortly after the election.
