Kosova Albanians: By David Field

I saw this great post on David's blog and thought I'd share with you! 

Although there are not any Kosova Refugees in the camp (Refugee Camp in Austria) anymore I still have a special place in my heart for them. Following on from 'What people think I do' series. Here are the Albanians

Refugees Flood Greece

From my friend Scott in Greece who thought we might like to see a sample of recent articles from Greek newspapers. Thanks for praying. As Scott says, "We really need a move of God in this country."

UNHCR Greece Press Review 16-18 October 2010

Please note this is an unedited press review

UNHCR slams migrant detention conditions

Greece must send doctors, interpreters and social workers as a matter of urgency to help migrants crammed into detention centres at its border with Turkey, said the UNHCR on Friday (15/10). “We are deeply concerned by the detention conditions…It’s a real emergency situation and requires urgent action,” stated UNHCR PI Officer Ketty Kehayioylou. According to official data, as many as 44 persons have died to date in 2010 in their attempt to reach the Greek side of the Evros river, while the actual number is believed to be higher. Furthermore, 9 in 10 irregular migrants use Greece as a springboat into the EU and arrivals by land –mostly from Turkey- have significantly increased, putting pressure on the country’s northern border regions.

(kathimerini.gr, in.gr, vimaonline.gr, 15 October, Kathimerini English Edition, Avriani, Niki, xronos.gr, 16 October)

Iranian hunger striker punched in the face by officer of Municipal police

One of the 7 Iranian hunger strikers, who have stitched their mouths and are staging a protest in Athens centre requesting to be granted asylum, was punched in the face by an Officer of the Municipal Police on Friday evening (15/10), according to allegations by the Iranian Committee for Refugees, the Immigrant Workers Union and the Movement Against Racism and the Fascist Threat. The Officer punched the Iranian shouting “here is Greece, get the hell out of here”. To be noted that shortly before the incident, the Iranian woman who has sewed her lips was urgently transferred to the hospital as she almost chocked on her own vomit. A press conference will be organized on Monday (18/10), in front of Athens University central building.

(tvxs.gr, episkiasis.wordpress.com, protoselido.com, 16 October, nobudget.wordpress.com, 17 October, athens.indymedia.org, neoiakoa.blogspot.com, 18 October)

Clashes with migrants in Athens Square

Tension between “indignant citizens” and migrants has recently shifted from the area of Aghios Panteleimonas to the nearby Athens Square. A far right group attacked on Saturday evening (16/10) a makeshift mosque, injuring two immigrants from Bangladesh. One of them was the priest of the mosque who remained inside the building under siege together with other migrants for one and half hour.  A mini-market owned by immigrants from Bangladesh was also attacked and five people were trapped inside for at least half an hour. Later on, clashes spread over the area for several hours while some 80 local citizens up in arms, including women and 15-year-old boys, gathered at the Square shouting in the presence of riot police “They are not humans, they are illegal migrants, they are worms”.

(tvxs.gr, 17 October, Eleftherotypia, Avriani, Ethnos, Eleftheros Typos, 18 October)

Suicide attempt by migrant held in police station

A migrant held in the detention area of a police station in western Athens attempted to commit suicide as he was kept in appalling conditions. The migrant was detained for six months waiting to be deported in violation of the law that sets out that the detention period for migrants to be deported should not exceed 3 months. According to reports by the Greek Police Technical Unit, conditions at the detention areas of police stations  in Athens are deplorable, referring i.a., to problems of overcrowdness and lack of natural light.

(Eleftheros Typos, 18 October)

European Court of Human Rights condemns Greece on illegal detention and degrading treatment of detained migrant

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) found in July that a 42-year-old asylum-seeker (A.A.) was held illegally in squalid conditions in a Greek detention centre. After leaving the refugee camp where he had been living in Lebanon, A.A. entered Greek territorial waters and was arrested by the coast guard. He was held in deplorable conditions for three months in the detention centre of Samos island where he was deprived of an interpreter and a lawyer as well as of timely medical care. The Court held that Greece had to pay the applicant 15,000 euros for non-pecuniary damage and 800 euros for costs and expenses.

(Kathimerini, 16 October)

250 migrants cross the Evros river on a daily basis

Some 250 people cross into the Greek side of the Evros river every day, while according to police data during the first 8 months of 2010 a total of 80,750 undocumented migrants were arrested in Greece. 34,175 of them were detained in the Evros region with 65% being Afghans coming either from Afghanistan or Iran, followed by Somalis. The vast majority of migrants end up in the mainland, particularly Athens, putting pressure in areas with burgeoning migrant population. Police authorities in Greece have registered 350,000 irregular migrants but the actual number is estimated to be higher. In addition, Greece received in 2010 10,083 requests from other EU countries to send back undocumented migrants under the Dublin II Regulation. Meanwhile, according to the police the exit of irregular migrants to other EU counties has been reduced by 90% in an effort to send the message that Greece is not an easy transit country.

(Ethnos, 16 October)

Action Plan for Athens centre still in paper

The Action Plan for Athens created by the Citizen Protection Ministry with the aim to upgrade the city’s centre has remained mainly on paper.  One of the main actions included is the management of the dozens of thousands of irregular migrants living in Athens centre by creating reception facilities to accommodate undocumented migrants in different areas of Greece away from urban centres. According to the plan 11 centres are to be created country-wide especially at entry points (Lesvos, Chios, Samos, Evros, Igoumenitsa, Patras etc.). However, the search process for areas to host the centres has frozen following the opposition of local communities.

(Real News, 17 October)

The Swell

From Loving the Overlooked

They are easy to spot. They look desperately tired. And dirty – like they haven’t changed clothes in weeks. Even in a crowd, they look alone; it’s almost as if you can see the despair settling into their eyes and the burden of worry loading down their shoulders. The swell of new refugees and immigrants into Greece simply doesn’t relent.

In July and August we met many new refugees around Athens: mostly from Afghanistan; often only having been in the city for a day or two; always displaying the despair and worry of new arrivals. With our building closed for construction, our ministry team spent extra time in the city parks and plateias (or neighborhood squares) around Athens this summer. This is where we first encounter these new arrivals.

Refugees and immigrants continue to pour into Greece. As the chart (above) indicates, while the numbers of illegal immigrants has tapered off in Italy and other European ports, Greece is unable to control its borders. Almost 3/4 of illegal immigrants headed for Europe in 2009 used Greece as their point of entry - that’s over 75,000 immigrants! Three years ago, Greece served as the point of entry for about 50% of illegal immigrants coming into the EU; 2010 estimates see that percentage swelling to around 80%. These numbers are coming from a recent article on illegal immigration in Greece in The Economist – it’s well worth the five minutes to read through.

As if not already overwhelming, we must remember that these numbers immigrants PEOPLE are entering a fragile economic and volatile social situation here in Greece. In short, these refugees and immigrants can expect little help from the Greek government – already crippled by innumerable crises in the past year. From the Economist article:

Detention centres for irregular immigrants in Greece are small and understaffed, and there are too few of them. Cash-strapped authorities encourage detainees to move on to Athens before their claims have been processed. And on top of the flow of tens of thousands arriving every year is a stock of an estimated 300,000 illegal immigrants already in the country. The €80m ($103m) the government spends each year on tackling the problem is far from adequate, but with austerity in the air more cash is unlikely to be found.

With this in the air, we are excited (jumping up and down, can’t hardly wait excited!) that we will be reopening our ministry center (the Athens Refugee Center) on Saturday! Please pray for our refugee friends, our ministry team, our updated programing (more on this later) and – of course – the many new refugee friends we’ll be meeting in the next weeks. Thanks for your support, love, and prayers!

My friend Tim writes about "Within a Yard of Hell"

Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.  C. T. Studd

Athens at the height of the Financial Crisis

I was in Athens last week for a networking meeting of Christians working to care for refugees in Europe.  We made a brief visit to a ministry center in the heart of the city where I worked nine years ago, and it really shook me.  The situation when I lived there was desperate, but desperate is no longer a sufficient description of this place.  No picture would do justice.

Thousands of immigrants and asylum seekers find themselves stuck in the cycle of Greece’s overwhelmed and broken bureaucracy, living in hovels or just in the parks, dreaming of a way out.  Many have fled persecution and violence in extreme forms, while others left behind “only” abject poverty and hopelessness.  At certain times of the day, the street turns into an overwhelming and intimidating sea of faces from the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Africa.  Inside an alleyway entrance to the center we were visiting, 50 Afghan women with children in tow lined up to collect basic food staples.  One man asked for money to buy medicine for the sick baby girl he was carrying, but we had to say no.

A few years back that same street became home to a methadone treatment center for drug abusers.  Now hundreds of addicts crowd the sidewalks — shaking, wavering and bobbing about with weak knees, seemingly oblivious to the world around them.  In a desperate search for their next fix, men and women drop their pants without shame or take turns stabbing each other in the back of the neck looking for a vein.  They’ve lost all sense of dignity and are lost in some other world, but it’s the needles in their shaky hands that make me shudder as we navigate the street.

In this same zone legal and not-so-legal prostitution runs rampant both day and night.  Women from Africa and Eastern Europe are lured in with promises of jobs and a new future only to be forced into sex slavery.  Some are physically held in confinement.  Others are kept through psychological and emotional abuse involving tales of impossible debts and threats of harm to their loved ones should they flee.  Brothels are lined up one after another, marked with simple white light bulbs left on outside the doors.  The men exiting brothels into the daylight look sheepishly at the ground, avoiding our gazes, and hurry on their way.

I think it is the unrestrained evil in this little triangle of Athens that strikes me most.  Overt, abusive, degrading evil is tolerated.  Police officers wander the streets in a show of power.  They spend most of their time checking immigrants’ documents while casually observing the drug deals an arm’s length away.  It’s like the authorities have given up, having resigned this section of the city to unrelenting darkness, perhaps only hoping to isolate it from the eyes of tourists.

I’m sure this must be what hell feels like.

They can Take My Home, But they Can't take my Future!

They can Take My Home, But they Can't take my Future!: " by Jen Kamari

That is the slogan on the banner outside the UNHCR office here in Kigali, commemorating World Refugee Day... which is TODAY!

A day to bring awareness to the world of the plight of over 43 million people who have been forcefully displaced for their home .. as the UNHCR puts it (United Nations High Commission for Refugees)

What is a refugee?

A refugee is a person - man, woman, or child - who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war or violence.

We have been to church this morning, been out for brunch at a local coffee shop when on the way home I saw this banner flying, and decided that I needed to write and do my part to bring awareness - but more so to share about our ministry in the Kiziba Refugee Camp here in Rwanda.

My first trip into the Kiziba refugee camp was in April 2003 and we have been going there ever since. In my first visit I listened to the pastors plead with me, to help them learn the Word of God so that someday when they were able to return to their homeland and villages, they would be more learned and able to better bring people to Christ.

Kiziba is home to 20,000 refugees - mostly Congolese. They have been in this camp for over 10 years now, just waiting, hoping, praying that the unrest in Eastern Congo would 'disappear' so they could return home. They live everyday in hope...

In the meantime, I think some incredible things have happened in the camp which we and International Teams have been privileged to be part of.

We have intentionally trained pastors and key church leaders for the past four years and will continue to. The 15 denominations have come together to form a ministerial to work together in ministry in the camp. A HUGE answer to our prayers ... they have understood that they can do more together than individually! (Me walking with some pastors and key leaders in the camp.)

Because the pastors and key leaders came together, the youth have also come together. About three years ago they came to us, speaking of their passion to evangelize and be Jesus hands and feet in the camp... would we fund their projects. NOPE!... but we trained them to develop small business plans challenging them to think how they could tap into the camp economy. They have done that and it's been SO fun to see them realize they didn't need a hand-out, they needed someone to come alongside them and help them.

(Some key youth leaders in the camp.)

They are charging cell phones! (We / International Teams got them a generator and some power bars) Before they would walk 2 hours ONE WAY to charge their phone!

They opened a haircutting salon... or saloon as they call it :-) (We got them equipment)

They realized that when they went to share the Good News of the Gospel in the camp, the people could not hear them because they were SO hungry... so they planted a garden. From the money they earned from the cell phone charging and the hair salon, they bought THEIR OWN seeds and even hired people to work the land!! SWEET!

We just learned last week that they have harvested 400 kg of cabbage, 300kg onions, 250 kg potatoes - ALOT!! and gave the food to the poorest in the camp.

With the money they make, they also pay the rent, buy fuel for the generator AND they have fixed up a couple very dilapidated homes occupied by widows.

PAST cool I tell you!!!

Last year we learned that the education in the camp has changed drastically. LONG story... but the short of it, if a child doesn't pass the National Exam for Grade 6, the UN is finished to pay for their schooling. A kid could have passed grade 6 in school and just not passed the national exam... they are REALLY hard. Done school at 12 years old! (Pray for Prince, he is preparing to write his in October.)

Serge and I were moved by this. Without education, how can one break the cycle of poverty and destitution that they are in? So, we decided we needed to do something about it.

This is our second year to sponsor 19 students in the Kiziba Refugee camp. Not many when you consider the hundreds that are not sponsored BUT these are 19 of the brightest students in the camp who are not on the streets and hence are not being subject to prostitution, drugs. They have a chance, they have hope...

I feel like what I have written really doesn't capture it all... but trust me, God is at work in the camp and we are blessed to be part of it.

If you want to check out more on what the UN says about refugees in Rwanda, check out this link. http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/page?page=49e45c576

I trust that you are moved to be thankful to God for your home, your family, your future... pray for the refugees in our world today, pray for us as we minister to refugees in Rwanda.

Should you want to give financially towards the ministry in Kiziba Camp, go to http://www.iteams.ca/impact_rwanda.php

"

Frank's Five Dollars

Our local “Ride for Refugees” is a great event that empowers many churches to get off the sidelines and become involved, raising funds and increasing awareness for the plight of refugees. http://www.rideforrefugees.com/ At our sixth annual event recently, 1,000 people gathered at Creekside Community Church in Waterloo, Ontario.

Over the course of the day I had several conversations with one of these participants, an honorary team member I’ll call "Frank" who lives on a disability pension that leaves him with next to nothing to spare. At times I was busy talking, making introductions and solving little issues as they arose and, well, Frank was constantly there ... a little in the way, really.

After the riders returned from their time on-the-road, had great food and were on their way, Frank found me one more time and looked at me directly and I saw emotion in his face. He placed a rolled up five dollar bill in my hand and said, "Here, this is for the refugees."

I was thrilled with his “widow’s mite.” Within 10 minutes his donation was matched and doubled! I was no longer annoyed. Rather, I was convicted. Seeing “one of the least of these” helping refugees prompted me to repent and change my attitude. “God looks on the heart.”

Powerful Song and Lyric

Time to redefine refugees as 'survival migrants'?

Written by: Katie Nguyen

LONDON (AlertNet) - Imagine fleeing your country and having to walk for several days before being able to sneak across the border into a foreign country that views outsiders with hostility.

Now imagine you are seven years old and making the trip alone with no food or water and just the clothes on your back.

Hundreds if not thousands of Zimbabwean minors have done just that in recent years - driven from their homes by chronic food shortages and an economy brought to the brink of collapse by recession and hyper-inflation.

Many have ended up in neighbouring South Africa, where they often face poverty, harassment and xenophobic attacks. But because most are not refugees as defined by a 1951 Convention that applies only to people who have fled violence and persecution, they receive limited legal protection.

There has long been an argument to expand the definition of a refugee to take into account the changing face of forced migration in the decades since the convention was drawn up.

Advocates of reform say warnings that climate change will force up to 250 million people from their homes by 2050 mean a rethink is needed more than ever.

However, critics say widening the "refugee" category would erode asylum seekers' rights and face opposition from states reluctant to sign up to new laws obliging them to provide protection for more people.

In a recently published paper, two academics from Oxford University have come up with a new term, "survival migrant", to accommodate groups who do not fall within the legal refugee definition.

They say "survival migration" refers to those fleeing "an existential threat to which they have no domestic recourse" due to a combination of state collapse, livelihood failure and environmental disaster.

"What constitutes existential threat? It's not just about the threat to life but the rights without which it is impossible to enjoy other rights, namely basic subsistence, basic liberty, basic security," said Alexander Betts, who co-wrote the paper.

"The existing refugee definition, in only looking at persecution, speaks to the narrowest element of security but doesn't speak to the other two," Betts told AlertNet. "Recognition of the survival migration status would ensure that civil, economic and social rights would be respected."

KINDNESS OF STRANGERS

The paper is based on a case study of Zimbabweans living in South Africa and Botswana. An estimated 2 million Zimbabweans have fled their country since 2005 - for many, resorting to the only available means of survival, Betts says.

Yet only 10 percent of Zimbabweans arriving in South Africa have been officially recognised as refugees.

As part of their research, Betts and his co-author Esra Kaytaz tracked down more than 3,400 Zimbabweans who had taken refuge in Johannesburg's Central Methodist Church, relying on the clergy's goodwill for shelter.

Among the group were more than 100 unaccompanied minors as well as pregnant women and people suffering from HIV/AIDS, cholera and tuberculosis.

"The government's main response to the church has been to try to forcibly clear the building, and local businesses are litigating to have the church emptied," the report said.

Betts says the legal quandary faced by these Zimbabweans is shared with many groups of Congolese, Somalis, Haitians, North Koreans and Iraqis, among others.

Although he said it would be tough to get states to endorse "survival migration" as a legal definition, he noted the success of attempts to protect other groups who have also been forced from their homes - in particular internally displaced people (IDPs), or those who have been uprooted within their own borders by violence or persecution.

An attempt to address the needs of survival migrants could draw upon the precedent of the United Nations' "Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement", which was drafted in 1998.

Though not legally binding in themselves, they consolidate states' existing responsibilities under international human rights law within a single "soft law" document.

The need to protect the rights of IDPs, who outnumber refugees globally, has prompted African countries to consider adopting a ground-breaking convention that will for the first time provide internally displaced people with similar rights to refugees.

"There are a number of reasons to be optimistic," Betts said. "The new realities of forced migration - climate change, livelihood collapse, state collapse - underpin the fact that the definition of refugee under the 1951 convention is not adequate. There's a growing acceptance that something needs to be done to supplement the convention."

The paper, "National and international responses to the Zimbabwean exodus: implications for the refugee protection regime", is due to be published on the website of the U.N. refugee body, UNHCR.

For more humanitarian news and analysis, please visit www.alertnet.org

Clean Water and the Water of Life in S. Sudan

Refugees aren't numbers