All posts tagged: displaced

Near Goma, displaced people begin long journey home

Near Goma, displaced people begin long journey home

Published by Sam

GOMA, DRC —  Once crowded with white makeshift huts, the huge Kanyaruchinya camp for displaced people on the outskirts of Goma, in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, looked eerily empty Sunday. Since Goma was taken by M23 fighters earlier this week, some 100,000 internally displaced people have left the jam-packed hillside where they had set up several years ago. The ongoing crisis in the eastern DRC continues to escalate, with tensions involving the Congolese government, and the M23 rebel group. The DRC government has officially designated the M23 rebel group as a terrorist organization, while the U.N. and the U.S. classify it as an armed rebel group. The DRC government has repeatedly accused Rwanda of supporting the M23 rebel group, a claim that Rwanda denies. Kigali, in turn, alleges that Kinshasa collaborates with the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Hutu armed group with ties to the perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, an allegation the DRC rejects. Military operations in the region remain fluid, with clashes leading to significant displacement …

Cate Blanchett, IFFR’s Hubert Bals Launch Displaced Filmmakers Fund

Cate Blanchett, IFFR’s Hubert Bals Launch Displaced Filmmakers Fund

Published by skeptic

Two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett is teaming up with the Rotterdam film festival‘s Hubert Bals Fund to launch a new program to support filmmakers displaced by war and other catastrophes. The Displacement Film Fund, which Blanchett, a global Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR, will launch at the Rotterdam festival this year, will provide funding for displaced filmmakers to work on short film projects. The pilot program will offer grants of €100,000 ($104,000) each to five displaced filmmakers to make original short films. Blanchett will head up the selection committee to pick the filmmakers, joined by Wicked star Cynthia Erivo, documentarians Jonas Poher Rasmussen (Flee) and Waad Al-Kateab (For Sama), director Agnieszka Holland (Green Border), Rotterdam festival director Vanja Kaludjercic, activist and refugee Aisha Khurram, and Amin Nawabi [alias], the LGBTQ+ asylum seeker who was Rasmussen’s inspiration for the Oscar-nominated Flee. “Film can drop you into the texture and realities of someone’s life like no other art form,” said Blanchett in a statement. “When people are forced to leave their homes, they lose …

Conflicts drive number of forcibly displaced people to record high | Global development

Conflicts drive number of forcibly displaced people to record high | Global development

Published by skeptic

The number of people forced out of their homes around the world last year was the equivalent of the population of London, according to the UN’s refugee agency. The latest annual assessment from the United Nations high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) said a sharp rise in the number of people forcibly displaced during 2023 had brought the total to a record high of more than 117 million. Conflicts were largely to blame with many, such as those in Ukraine and Sudan, showing little sign of ending. Widespread violence meant that the 8.8 million people forcibly displaced in 2023 – nearly the same as the UK capital’s population – eclipsed the previous record, set the year before, after a series of year-on-year increases over the past 12 years. In total, 1.5% of the world’s population is now forcibly displaced – nearly double the proportion of a decade ago. The UNHCR – which said its figures included refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced people and others in need of international protection – warned that the total had continued …

Death toll from rains in southern Brazil rises to 57 as 69,000 people displaced | Brazil

Death toll from rains in southern Brazil rises to 57 as 69,000 people displaced | Brazil

Published by skeptic

The death toll from rains in Brazil’s southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul has risen to 57, local authorities said on Saturday afternoon, while dozens still have not been accounted for. The state’s civil defence authority said 67 people were still missing and more than 69,000 had been displaced as storms affected nearly two-thirds of the 497 cities in the state. Floods destroyed roads and bridges and triggered landslides and the partial collapse of a dam at a small hydroelectric power plant. A second dam in the city of Bento Gonçalves is also at risk of collapsing, authorities said. In Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul’s capital, the Guaíba lake broke its banks, flooding streets. Porto Alegre’s international airport has suspended all flights for an indefinite period. People are evacuated from a flooded area in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil. The death toll from floods and mudslides triggered by torrential storms in southern Brazil has climbed to 58 people. Photograph: Carlos Fabal/AFP/Getty Images Rains are expected in the northern and north-eastern …

Rwanda Denies Its Troops Attacked Displaced Persons Camp in DR Congo

Rwanda Denies Its Troops Attacked Displaced Persons Camp in DR Congo

Published by skeptic

KIGALI/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Rwanda on Saturday denied U.S. accusations that its forces attacked a displaced persons’ camp in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and instead blamed militias it said were supported by the Congolese military for the assault. The U.S. strongly condemned Friday’s attack which killed at least nine people, the U.S. State Department said in a statement. The attack was mounted from positions held by the Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF) and the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group, the U.S. statement said. The U.S. is “gravely concerned about the recent RDF and M23 expansion” in eastern Congo, it said. Rwandan government spokesperson Yolande Makolo denied the RDF was behind the attack and instead blamed it on militias supported by the Congolese military. “The RDF, a professional army, would never attack an IDP (displaced persons). Look to the lawless FDLR and Wazalendo supported by the FARDC (Congolese military) for this kind of atrocity,” she said in a post on X. The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) is a Hutu group founded by Hutu officials …

‘Fuel for water’: Heatwave piles misery on displaced people in Myanmar

‘Fuel for water’: Heatwave piles misery on displaced people in Myanmar

Published by Sam

A SWELLING CAMP A dozen or so camp residents queue up at the truck for water rations that will have to last them three or four days. Children carry the containers home in baskets on their backs or via trolleys as hot wind whips up dust from the dirt road. “When there were only residents living in this place, there was enough water,” said Zay Yar Tun of the charity Clean Yangon. “But after the displaced people fled here, the population is too much for the amount of water we can get here.” Donations keep Zay Yar Tun’s team and its two trucks running, and they make two deliveries to the camp each week. Finding the streams or springs to fill up their truck can be dangerous in Kayah, which has emerged as one of the hotspots of resistance to military rule. The military regularly calls in air and artillery strikes on its opponents and landmines are a constant danger. Transporting cargo to the camps is difficult too. The fuel the team needs to run …

Lebanon’s displaced celebrate Ramadan amid fears that border conflict might become the ‘new normal’

Lebanon’s displaced celebrate Ramadan amid fears that border conflict might become the ‘new normal’

Published by Sam

MARWANIEH, Lebanon (AP) — Shortly before sunset on a recent evening, Mervat Reslan and a group of other women made french fries in vats of boiling oil to serve with that night’s iftar — the meal that breaks the daily fasts Muslims observe during the holy month of Ramadan. They belong to roughly 60 families who have been sheltering at an abandoned hotel in the southern Lebanon town of Marwanieh to escape the shelling and airstrikes that have made it too dangerous to stay in their homes in the country’s border region with Israel. Although they’ve become a family of sorts to one another, many long to return home. “Especially during Ramadan, you start thinking that your house is Ramadbetter — that you and your family all used to gather together, your children and their children, your in-laws and neighbors. And now you’re sitting by yourself in a room,” said Reslan. Those living at the Hotel Montana, which went out of business in 2005, are among an estimated 90,000 people from southern Lebanon who have …

Lebanon’s Displaced Celebrate Ramadan And Long For Home

Lebanon’s Displaced Celebrate Ramadan And Long For Home

Published by skeptic

MARWANIEH, Lebanon —  Shortly before sunset on a recent evening, Mervat Reslan and a group of other women made french fries in vats of boiling oil to serve with that night’s iftar — the meal that breaks the daily fasts Muslims observe during the holy month of Ramadan. They belong to roughly 60 families who have been sheltering at an abandoned hotel in the southern Lebanon town of Marwanieh to escape the shelling and airstrikes that have made it too dangerous to stay in their homes in the country’s border region with Israel. Although they’ve become a family of sorts to one another, many long to return home. “Especially during Ramadan, you start thinking that your house is better — that you and your family all used to gather together, your children and their children, your in-laws and neighbors. And now you’re sitting by yourself in a room,” said Reslan. Those living at the Hotel Montana, which went out of business in 2005, are among an estimated 90,000 people from southern Lebanon who have been …