On World Refugee Day, Sudan conflict seen as making global displacement crisis worse

Refugees from Sudan who crossed into Ethiopia carry their belongings in Metema on May 5, 2023. (AFP)
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Updated 20 June 2023
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On World Refugee Day, Sudan conflict seen as making global displacement crisis worse

  • Some 108.4 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide in 2022, according to the UN refugee agency
  • Climate change and natural disasters may soon overtake conflict as the main drivers of displacement

DUBAI: When two extreme athletes decided to take on a grueling challenge to row across the Atlantic Ocean in solidarity with refugees, they did not expect to experience the same terror endured by the millions of displaced people who attempt such perilous crossings every year.

Omar Samra, an Egyptian adventurer and motivational speaker, along with his good friend and professional athlete Omar Nour, tell their story in the award-winning documentary “Beyond the Raging Sea.”

The film follows the duo as they fight for their lives on the high sea, stranded in open water for hours when their boat suddenly capsizes mid-storm during their journey from the Canary Islands to Antigua in 2017.

“I think the main lesson that we learnt through our experience is that while our journey bears some similarities to the plight of refugees, it’s very different, because we embarked on this journey by choice,” Samra told Arab News via a Zoom interview.




Omar Samra, Egyptian adventurer and motivational speaker, along with his good friend and professional athlete Omar Nour, rowing across the Atlantic. (Supplied)

“We had the best training and best equipment … but to think that someone would go through all of this to try and get to the other side to understand that their problems are only starting is something that is very daunting.”

To mark World Refugee Day on June 20, Samra and dozens of public figures and influencers have come forward on multiple online platforms to highlight the rapidly growing global displacement crisis.

In its latest report, “Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2022,” the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, recorded the highest levels of displacement on record, with 108.4 million individuals forcibly displaced worldwide by conflict, violence, persecution, or human rights violations.

This year World Refugee Day is being observed in the shadow of yet another grinding conflict and massive displacement crisis — this time in Sudan.

Since the armed conflict erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in mid-April, hundreds of thousands have been displaced, both within the nation’s borders and into neighboring countries.




Sudanese drivers wait by their buses upon arrival at the Egyptian village of Wadi Karkar near Aswan on May 14, 2023 after fleeing war-torn Sudan. (AFP)

Rula Amin, spokesperson for the UNHCR’s Middle East and North Africa regional bureau, believes the best and most effective way to stop these numbers increasing is to end the conflict and resolve the dispute through negotiations.

In the meantime, neighboring countries, including Egypt, Libya, Chad, Ethiopia, the Central African Republic and Eritrea, can help the people of Sudan by keeping their borders open to people escaping the conflict, she said.

“People fleeing, seeking protection, should have access to territory regardless of how they arrive,” Amin told Arab News.

“Neighboring countries can help by hosting people crossing the border and ensuring they receive support and access to services.”

However, in order for host countries to shoulder this responsibility successfully, Amin emphasizes the need for the international community to lend support.

While there are several countries around the world that are making changes to accommodate displaced communities, the influx of refugees places significant economic and social strain on host nations, said Dr. Sonia Ben Jaafar, CEO of the Emirates-based Abdulla Al-Ghurair Foundation, which oversees the Abdul Aziz Refugee Education Fund.

Lebanon and Jordan have faced particular challenges in providing basic services, such as housing, healthcare, education and employment opportunities, for both their own populations and vast numbers of predominantly Syrian and Palestinian refugees, she said.




Dr. Sonia Ben Jaafar, CEO of the Emirates-based Abdulla Al-Ghurair Foundation, which oversees the Abdul Aziz Refugee Education Fund. (Supplied)

“Insufficient financial support from the international community can limit the capacity of countries like Lebanon and Jordan, and exacerbate tensions within host communities, leading to further challenges and potential instability,” Ben Jaafar told Arab News.

She emphasized the need for massive, coordinated efforts to strengthen regional and international partnerships that can “facilitate burden-sharing and alignment of humanitarian efforts.”

Without viable and sustainable conflict resolution through diplomatic efforts, which Sudan lacks today, prolonged displacement is inevitable, she added.

Until recently, Sudan was home to the second-largest refugee population in Africa, with more than a million displaced people from South Sudan, Eritrea, Syria, Ethiopia, the Central African Republic, Chad and Yemen.

However, Sudan’s own descent into violence has disrupted whole communities caught in the crossfire, including 3.5 million Sudanese already internally displaced and the 1.1 million refugees who had taken shelter there, according to the UN.

“If fighting continues, the number of people forced to flee their homes looking for safety will increase,” said Amin.

An estimated 1.2 million people were newly displaced within Sudan and a further 378,300 had fled to neighboring countries as of the end of May. The number of food-insecure people in the country, which the UN expects to increase by more than 2 million in the next three to six months, further compounds the humanitarian emergency.

“The parties fighting on the ground must adhere to international principles and avoid targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure,” said Amin, who added that the widely-reported human rights violations in the country “must stop immediately.”

Several other regions of the world are witnessing a massive spike in the number of refugees, including Europe in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, and parts of Central Asia owing to the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan in 2021.

According to the UN report, more than half of all refugees and other people in need of international protection come from just three countries — Syria (6.5 million), Afghanistan (5.7 million), and Ukraine (5.7 million).

“Countries within the Eastern Mediterranean Region, such as Syria, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Yemen and Sudan, to name a few, are home to about three-quarters of those internally displaced, creating a dire need for expanding access to basic services to migrants to tackle inequalities,” said Ben Jaafar.

And with each passing year of displacement, issues like food and water security, sanitation, healthcare, personal safety, housing and education are becoming worse as host-nation resources become strained, she said.

“Education, in particular, is a critical area that offers significant potential for solutions amidst these challenges as the lack of educational opportunities for displaced children can lead to severe ramifications at personal, national and regional scales,” said Ben Jaafar.

Indeed, early marriage, barriers to mobility, financial constraints and child labor — to name but a few — can all be prevented by providing young refugees with education and training, she said.

However, millions of refugees who are either stateless or of undetermined nationality are unable to access essential services and basic rights, including education, healthcare, formal employment, or even the right to travel.

The UN report shows that an estimated 4.4 million people worldwide were either stateless or of undetermined nationality in 2022 — 90,800 more than at the end of 2021.




People evacuated from the Belgorod region’s zones bordering Ukraine, including those from the town of Shebekino, receive humanitarian aid in Belgorod on June 3, 2023. (AFP)

The crisis in Ukraine last year contributed significantly to the upward trajectory of the global displacement crisis. In February 2022, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine alone created the largest displacement crisis since the Second World War.

In the early days of the war, more than 200,000 refugees per day were crossing borders in search of sanctuary, initially in countries adjacent to Ukraine. By the end of 2022, 11.6 million Ukrainians had been displaced, including 5.9 million internally displaced persons and 5.7 million who had fled to neighboring countries and beyond.

While millions of Ukrainian refugees received temporary protection, granted by EU member states and other countries, the highest number of new asylum applications ever recorded, at 2.6 million, were registered by more than 140 nationalities in 155 countries during 2022.

A large number of refugees were also reported to have returned to their homes, many due to a lack of alternative options.

UN data shows that both Syria and Afghanistan reported the largest numbers of returnees, with 51,300 Syrians returning to their country in 2022, up by 14,800 on 2021 figures, and some 236,200 returning to Afghanistan — 21 percent of them women and 57 percent children.

There have been some positive developments. The UN report also found that a cessation of fighting in northern Ethiopia, agreed in November 2022, resulted in 1.9 million internally displaced persons returning that year.




Afghan internally displaced refugee women walk with their children to the bus as they return home to a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the outskirts of Kabul on July 28, 2022. (AFP)

Similarly, in Yemen, a UN-coordinated ceasefire, which expired in October 2022 but continued to be broadly adhered to, brought hope to a country in which half of the population are food insecure.

“The challenge before us, therefore, is to work together towards a world that respects diversity and will empower refugees and facilitate their preparedness for economic participation,” said Ben Jaafar.

Globally, Turkiye, Iran, Colombia, Germany and Pakistan hosted the largest refugee populations at the end of 2022, including people in refugee-like situations and other people in need of international protection.

“There is definitely a challenge here (for host countries), but the conversation should be ‘how do we solve the challenge?’ rather than ‘do we take in people or not?’” said the Egyptian athlete, Samra.

While conflict and violence are some of the main factors behind the refugee crisis, Samra also pointed out that natural disasters and climate change are increasingly contributing to displacement.

“Research has predicted that the highest number of refugees is going to come from climate-change issues in the next decade,” he said.

The latest UN report shows that around 32.6 million new displacements were due to natural disasters, with 21 percent occurring in the least developed countries and small island developing states.

As a result of climate change, these countries have experienced disproportionately high economic losses in relation to the size of their economies.

“This is the very thing that threatens the existence of a country or a region,” said Samra.

Those with a public platform, including athletes, celebrities and public figures, have a responsibility to raise awareness, foster dialogue, and shift public perceptions on refugees, he added.

“I think the refugee crisis, along with the climate crisis, are the biggest issues that the world faces today, and the way we choose to deal with it, whether it’s in a humane way or otherwise, will dictate the face of our planet for years.”


Lebanese PM to visit Syria, discuss disappearance of prisoners

Updated 13 April 2025
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Lebanese PM to visit Syria, discuss disappearance of prisoners

  • Nawaf Salam lays wreath at Martyrs’ Monument in Beirut to commemorate 50th anniversary of Lebanese Civil War

LONDON: Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam is scheduled to visit the Syrian Arab Republic on Monday to discuss common interests with the new leadership in Damascus.

It will be Salam’s first visit to Syria since he formed a government in February, and he is scheduled to discuss the issue of Lebanese citizens who disappeared in Syrian prisons during the Bashar Assad regime that collapsed in December. It has been reported that 622 Lebanese nationals remain forcibly disappeared in Syrian prisons.

“I hope to return with good news about those missing in Syria, and I will update the Lebanese people on this issue tomorrow,” Salam said, according to the National News Agency.

Salam laid a wreath at the Martyrs’ Monument in Beirut on Sunday to commemorate the anniversary of April 13, the date when Lebanon’s Civil War began in 1975.

Salam wrote on X: “We pause not to reopen wounds, but to recall lessons that must never be forgotten. All victories were false, and all parties (from the war) emerged as losers.”

He added: “There can be no true state unless legitimate armed forces have the exclusive right to bear arms.”


Aid worker missing after deadly attack on colleagues is held by Israel, ICRC says

PRCS paramedic Assad Al-Nsasrah is being held in an Israeli place of detention. (@PalestineRCS)
Updated 13 April 2025
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Aid worker missing after deadly attack on colleagues is held by Israel, ICRC says

  • PRCS demanded the immediate release of Nsasrah, who it said was “forcibly abducted” while carrying out humanitarian duties

CAIRO: A Palestinian Red Crescent staff member who went missing in late March when 15 humanitarian workers were killed by Israeli fire is being detained by Israeli authorities, the rescue service and the Red Cross said on Sunday.
Hisham Mhana, the spokesperson for the ICRC in Gaza, confirmed to Reuters that it had received information that the Palestine Red Crescent Society paramedic Assad Al-Nsasrah was being held in an Israeli place of detention.
“As per standard practice, we informed the families immediately. In this case, we also informed the Palestine Red Crescent Society as they have special standing as a partner of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement,” he said.
The Israeli army did not immediately comment.
Mhana said the ICRC has not been granted access to Nsasrah, who until Sunday had been declared missing, and also has not been able to visit any of the Palestinian detainees and prisoners in Israeli jails since October 7, 2023.
In a post on X, The PRCS demanded the immediate release of Nsasrah, who it said was “forcibly abducted” while carrying out humanitarian duties.
It added that Nsasrah and his colleagues came under heavy gunfire, which led to the killing of eight of them in a “grave violation” of international humanitarian law.
The bodies of 15 emergency and aid workers from the Red Crescent, the Civil Emergency Service and the UN were found buried in a mass grave in southern Gaza in March.
The UN and the Red Crescent accused Israeli forces of killing them after they were dispatched to respond to reports of injuries from Israeli airstrikes.
The Israeli military referred Reuters to its statement from Monday, in which it said that a thorough inquiry into the incident was still underway and that it would provide further details only once the investigation is complete.
It said that a preliminary inquiry indicated that “the troops opened fire due to a perceived threat following a previous encounter in the area, and that six of the individuals killed in the incident were identified as Hamas terrorists.”
The Israeli military has provided no evidence of how it determined that the six were Hamas militants, and the Islamist faction has rejected the accusation.
The only known survivor of the incident, PRCS paramedic Munther Abed, said soldiers had opened fire on clearly marked emergency response vehicles.


Moroccans demonstrate in support of Palestinians

Updated 13 April 2025
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Moroccans demonstrate in support of Palestinians

  • Demonstrators marched through the streets of Rabat under pouring rain in response to a call from the National Action Group for Palestine

RABAT: Several thousand people demonstrated in Morocco’s capital on Sunday to show support for Palestinians in war-torn Gaza.
Under pouring rain, demonstrators marched through the streets of Rabat in response to a call from the National Action Group for Palestine, a coalition of several political organizations, including the Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD).
“The Moroccans are with Gaza,” said the principal of a private school in Rabat who spoke to AFP.
The North African kingdom has officially called for “the immediate, complete and permanent halt to the Israeli war on Gaza,” but has not publicly discussed reversing the official establishment of ties with Israel in 2020 as part of the US-led Abraham Accords.
The latest protest followed another large rally held a week earlier, part of a spate of demonstrations across the country since the Israeli army resumed its offensive on March 18 against the Islamist group Hamas after a two-month truce in Gaza.


Israel denies entry to Jerusalem for Palestinian Christians marking Palm Sunday

Updated 13 April 2025
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Israel denies entry to Jerusalem for Palestinian Christians marking Palm Sunday

  • Israeli restrictions at checkpoints around Jerusalem require Palestinians to obtain security permits to access religious sites
  • Only 6,000 permits were issued this year to the West Bank’s 50,000 Christians

LONDON: Israeli authorities prevented Palestinian Christian worshippers from entering Jerusalem from the occupied West Bank to participate in Palm Sunday.

Israeli authorities imposed strict restrictions on Jerusalem over the weekend, limiting the access of Palestinian Christians to the city, the Wafa news agency reported.

Only a limited number of worshippers, primarily residents of Jerusalem and Palestinian citizens of Israel, were able to attend religious services at Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Wafa added.

Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week leading up to Easter. It commemorates the entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem and is observed by Eastern and Western Christian churches.

On Sunday, Patriarch Theophilos III of the Greek Orthodox Church and Latin Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa led liturgies attended by the clergy and a small group of worshipers.

Israeli restrictions at checkpoints around Jerusalem require Palestinians — Muslim and Christian — to obtain permits to access religious sites, including the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Father Ibrahim Faltas, Vicar of the Custody of the Holy Land, noted that only 6,000 permits were issued this year to the West Bank’s 50,000 Christians. Permit issuance requires a security clearance and often asks that applicants download a mobile application managed by Israeli authorities.

“This is the second consecutive year that only a small number of pilgrims are able to participate in Holy Week and Easter celebrations in Jerusalem due to the ongoing conflict (in Gaza),” Faltas told Wafa.

“Churches would continue to pray for peace, justice, and freedom for all people in the Holy Land,” he added.

The Catholic Palm Sunday procession took place on Sunday afternoon, starting from Jerusalem's Church of Bethphage and ending at the Church of Saint Anne.

Christians gathered for services at the Holy Family Catholic Church and Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church in the Gaza Strip amid the ongoing Israeli attacks since late 2023. In the West Bank, Palm Sunday services were held in churches throughout Bethlehem, Jericho, Ramallah, Nablus, and Jenin.


Syrian President Sharaa heads to UAE on official visit - SANA

Updated 13 April 2025
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Syrian President Sharaa heads to UAE on official visit - SANA

CAIRO: Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa will travel to the United Arab Emirates for his second visit to a Gulf state as president on Sunday, Syria's official news agency reported.
He will be accompanied by foreign minister Assad al-Shibani, who visited the UAE earlier this year.
They are expected to discuss issues of mutual interest, the SANA state news agency reported.
Sharaa visited Saudi Arabia in February on his first foreign trip since assuming the presidency in January.
His visit to the UAE comes as the new Syrian leadership attempts to strengthen ties with Arab and Western leaders following the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December at the hands of Sharaa's Sunni Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

 

(With Reuters)