Category: Africa

Arab Spring causes jump in refugee numbers, highest in 11 years

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

On the eve of World Refugee Day (one of those PR gimmicks they started about 10 years ago) we learned that surprise! surprise! the Arab Spring is responsible for a dramatic increase in refugees worldwide.  Are you surprised?

From Reuters:

LONDON (AlertNet) – Post-election violence in Ivory Coast and the Arab Spring revolutions helped create 800,000 new refugees last year – the highest number in over a decade, according to the U.N. refugee agency’s annual report on global trends.

“2011 saw suffering on an epic scale. For so many lives to have been thrown into turmoil over so short a space of time means enormous personal cost for all who were affected,” said Antonio Guterres, head of the UNHCR agency.

In all, 4.3 million people were newly displaced last year due to conflict or persecution, according to the Global Trends 2011 report. Most were uprooted within their own countries.

Conflict in Ivory Coast, Libya, Somalia and Sudan were among crises that prompted large numbers to flee their homes.

Worldwide, 42.5 million people ended 2011 either as refugees (15.2 million), internally displaced within their country (26.4 million) or in the process of seeking asylum (895,000).

How’s that “responsibility to protect” rule for making war working for Samantha and the kids at the White House?

Good news! Mogadishu is safe! Somalis can go home!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

So now what?  We have “resettled” over a hundred thousand Somalis into US cities, but lo-and-behold now we see that Somalis are going “home” for visits and Mogadishu is no longer the most dangerous city in the world.   At minimum, we can now stop bringing so-called Somali “refugees” to America, right?  How about a repatriation program where we send the Somalis we have educated, fed, and cared for, back to rebuild their own country!

From AP:

The seaside Somali capital is enjoying a peace that, except for the infrequent attack, has lasted the better part of a year. Somalis who fled decades of war are coming back, as are U.N. workers who long operated out of Nairobi, the capital of neighboring Kenya.

Embassies are reopening and a U.S. assistant secretary of state visited here on Sunday, the highest-ranking U.S. official to set foot in Mogadishu since the infamous Black Hawk Down battle of 1993.

Minnesota resident Abdikhafar Abubakar fled Somalia in 1992, leaving behind his mother, three siblings and other family members. He planned to visit twice in previous years, but each time his mother warned it was too dangerous.

Last week, he finally returned to Mogadishu, where he saw his mother for the first time in two decades. This time she said it was safe and she welcomed him home with tears of joy. He later walked the streets with his brother.

“One thing I could say about Mogadishu as the most dangerous city in the world: I’ve been here one week and I never felt any danger,” Abubakar said. “When I was out walking around, I wasn’t scared. There was nothing to be scared of.”

Yippee!

Truth be told, Somalis have been traveling back and forth for years and years (we know  for a fact that a Somali “leader” in Nashville has been doing that) which raises the question, if they could go back and forth, how could they claim to be in danger and in need of our protection?

Israeli liberal gets mugged, changes tune on illegal Africans flooding Israel

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I love these ‘liberal-gets-mugged’ stories, don’t you!  The Israeli journalist changed his tune about protecting the economic migrants* when they invaded his town!

New readers, please see our ‘Israel and refugees’ category for all the latest on this controversy.

From Jameel Muqata writing at the Jewish Press:

Israel has been under attack by the onslaught of illegal immigrants from Africa and over the past few months there has been an unbearable rise of crime — brutal rapes and assaults of teenagers and women in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Netivot, Lod, Netanya, Eilat, Or Akiva, Bnei Brak, Kiryat Sefer, and more. These illegal job-seeking immigrants are being deemed as “refugees” by all sorts of “aid groups” in Israel, who vocally protest all government actions to evict these illegals — estimates ranging from 90,000 to 700,000. Many of the same “social justice” advocates who demand a better quality of life for Israel’s lower and middle class, are also demanding equal rights for these thousands of illegals as well.

These “activists” live in fiscal fantasyland.

Now here is the figurative ‘mugging’ part of the story:

Left leaning Israeli Journalist Guy Maroz slammed right-wing MKs in March 2010 for wanting to create “labor camps” for these illegal workers. He was among the most vocal activists demanding that Israel not deport the children of these illegal immigrants with their families.

Till it hit home for him.

Till he woke up and realized that the problem isn’t only in South Tel-Aviv or Eilat (which obviously aren’t his problem because he doesn’t live there)…and the illegals started flooding all of Israel, his hometown as well.

Read what Maroz said.

Muqata goes one to say:

Israel needs to quickly take decisive action to quash the illegal immigration from Africa.

This isn’t racism. This isn’t intolerance. This isn’t immoral.

This is self-preservation. This is the responsibility of survival of the Jewish State, for us, our children, and generations to come.

Some in Israel get it!

Yesterday a Kansas reader cheered when she sent this Reuters story from the same day (Monday) as the piece above.

Israel rounds up African migrants for deportation

* Legitimate refugees arrive in the first safe country and ask for asylum, in this case these people are simply moving on and shopping for a country in which they might find work and are thus termed “economic migrants.”   Most of the asylum seekers arriving on US borders are not legitimate refugees either—they generally have traveled through many safe South and Central American countries, or indeed Canada, where they would have been able to ask for asylum. They are really trying to get to the pot of gold—the US (or in the case of the Middle East—Israel).

Witness who refused to testify in Nashville Somali sex trafficking case faces jail time

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

One of the Somalis the government hoped would testify in the Somali sex trafficking case* said he feared for his life if he snitched on his fellow countrymen.

From AP:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Somali man who refused to testify against gang members in a sex trafficking trial in Nashville told a judge that he was assaulted and warned that gang members would get him if he snitched.

Abdullahi Farah was charged with criminal contempt for refusing to testify during a federal trial against nine defendants accused in a sex trafficking ring. Three people were convicted and six were acquitted by a jury in May.

Farah said on the stand Thursday that men wearing masks assaulted him twice and he was told that threats were made against him for cooperating with federal prosecutors in the case, which includes more than 30 defendants and spanned from Minnesota to Ohio and Tennessee.

The indictment alleged that Somali gangs in Minneapolis and Nashville were using young girls and women for prostitution.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge Todd Campbell found him guilty of criminal contempt and ordered sentencing to be set for July 3.

[…..]

“I knew what the gangs are capable of,” he testified on Thursday. “I’ve seen it.”

But, did the government (ICE) make him promises and double cross him.  I don’t have time to look further into this, but read the rest of the AP story here.

For new readers, here is one post from earlier this year on the case.  But, if you are really interested, type ‘somali sex trafficking’ into our search function and you will get many posts on the sorry tale.

NM: Handless Burundian refugee lies about his identity

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Hmmmm….True Refugee Crime Stories* continues with latest installment.

A Burundian refugee sans hands throws rocks through a window (presumably using only arm stubs), gets arrested and authorities learn he has stolen a neighbor’s identity.  I didn’t make this story up!

From KOAT ABC7 Albuquerque (thanks to a reader):

An Albuquerque man is in custody after being accused of throwing a volleyball-sized rock through a fast food restaurant window.

Investigators said the man — who is without hands — shattered two windows at the restaurant.

As detectives investigate the case, the man’s former neighbors are saying that the man isn’t who he claims to be.

Koffi Mbairamadji said he was stunned when people started asking him if he had been to jail recently.

Mbairamadji said the man who broke the windows is actually known as Adjabo. He said Adjabo is from Burundi, a country in central Africa.

“He can’t even read, so how can someone who doesn’t know how to read can get my personal information?” Mbairamadji asked.

Mbairamadji said Adjabo came to Albuquerque two years ago as a political refugee. He said he doesn’t know how Adjabo lost his hands but that it’s likely they were cut off during a battle in his native country.

Of course another reason he could have lost his hands is by being punished for stealing—justice under Shariah law.

Looks like it’s Catholic Charities bringing Burundian diversity to New Mexico, here.  No surprise there.

* Refugee crimes are archived here in our special “crimes” category.