DR Congo crisis leaves mothers with newborns fleeing to Burundi
The aid response in Burundi to the crisis in neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) “is literally buckling”, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, warned on Friday, as it relayed dramatic testimonies from people forced to flee the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels.
More than 63,000 people now have crossed into Burundi, fleeing atrocities and “deadly conflict” in parts of eastern DRC.
To assist the new arrivals, UNCHR and partners are registering them in Rugombo before helping them relocate to refugee sites far from the border, said Faith Kasina, UNHCR Regional Spokesperson.
She issued an urgent appeal for immediate and sustained humanitarian funding:
“I met this lady who’s 45 years old and she told me, you know, this is not her first time being displaced. She had been in Burundi, specifically in Rugombo, in h er teenage years, and now she’s forced back in the exact – almost exact – same spot now with six children. And it’s just as an unending cycle of displacement.”
In recent days UNCHR warned that sexual violence and human rights abuses remain rampant near the frontlines in DRC, along with looting and destruction of homes and businesses.
Syria: up to one million people plan to return home in desperation
Staying with UNHCR, which says that in Syria, up to one million desperate people living in camps and displacement sites acr oss the country’s northwest intend to return home within the next year – sparking deep concerns of a new humanitarian crisis.
According to the UN refugee agency, 600,000 people could be on the move in the next six months.
UNHCR’s Celine Schmitt said that people will need “housing, jobs, schools, hospitals, electricity and clean water” – all of which are lacking after 14 years of civil war:
“We met a mother who was living in a tent with her children. Without access to water, without access to a job, the school was two kilometers away and she told us that she was really willing to go back home. But her home was destroyed. And then she said that she was planning to take her tent and to go back home and put the tent next to her house just to be back home. And she was asking for small humanitarian help to be able to restart to rebuild her life and with that help she would be able to restart her life at home.”
Twenty-three districts in Syria could see their populations at least double, placing additional strain on already overstretched basic services and infrastructure.
Thousands of Sudanese detained, including women and children
Tens of thousands of Sudanese, many women and children, have been held in squalid and overcrowded detention facilities – often without being charged – the UN human rights office said on Friday.
Spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani warned that detainees are “an often-forgotten group”, cut off from their families and frequently subjected to harrowing torture and ill treatment, including severe beatings.
Human rights abuses have been recorded on all sides of the brutal nearly two-year-long conflict between rival militaries – the national army, or SAF, and the Rapid Support Forces militia.
Here’s Ms. Shamdasani now describing one woman’s ordeal:
“‘When I woke up, my body was soaked in blood,’ one detainee recounted. The report documents the use by the RSF of children as young as 14 as guards, and the detention of children alongside adults. Disturbingly, sexual violence and exploitation of women detainees were reported in two RSF-controlled places of detention. In both RSF and SAF-controlled facilities, detainees reported discriminatory treatment based on ethnicity and perceived affiliation with the opposing party to the conflict.”
Ms. Shamdasani reminded all parties to the conflict that no one should be detained without due process or subjected to any form of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
Daniel Johnson, UN News
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