Why? I don’t know, some fuzzy notion that Belgium and the West messed up West/Central Africa and now we are obligated to take in their people displaced by warring factions.
Terry K. Mulumba decided to leave behind his haunting past.
“Thinking about it would be wrong and would take me down,” he said.
Mulumba, a 22-year-old studying for the math and science portions of the GED test, is one of the first refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to have been resettled in Lancaster County.
Lutheran Refugee Services and Church World Service each expect to resettle 50 more Congolese here in the coming year.To put that into perspective, Lutheran Refugee Services settles an average of 200 refugees of varying nationalities in Lancaster County each year.
Like Mulumba, who came here in 2012, many Congolese are escaping the eastern and southeastern regions of the country because of political and ethnic tensions that were fostered through years of Belgian colonial rule and a Western-backed dictatorship.
Just for your information, Lancaster (the city) at the heart of Amish country, has had refugee overload for some time and so the resettlement agencies are now spreading refugees to surrounding small towns in the county, like this one (Akron, PA) in this story.
For new readers, Lutheran Refugee Services (subcontractor of LIRS) and Church World Service are two of nine US State Department contractorsresettling refugees with your tax dollars in the US. Also, for new readers one of our top (most-clicked on) items here at RRW is our fact sheet, here.
France has agreed to take in 500 Syrian refugees at the request of the United Nations following talks in Paris between French President François Hollande and UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, the UN agency said Wednesday.
Even the Socialist Hollande knows what Muslim immigrants have done to France! Maybe they will insist on Christians only.
With no end to the conflict in sight, the UN agency has urged EU nations to offer asylum to some 10,000 Syrians this year and another 30,000 in 2014.
[…..]
Some 50,000 Syrians have so far applied for asylum in the EU, mostly in Sweden and Germany.
Speaking of Sweden, they are hastening their country’s decline with a record number of asylum seekers—mostly Syrians and Eritreans—tweeted by Fjordman, here.
We mentioned the second Mediterranean boat-sinking in just over a week, here. Now there are allegations that the boat was fired-on by Libyans.
Survivors (looks like mostly young men) arrive in Valletta on Maltese patrol boat. Photo: (AFP/Matthew Mirabelli)
The UN is asking for an explanation and at least Malta’s Prime Minister is trying to get some negotiations underway with Libyan Prime Minister, Ali Zidan.
But, this is what I don’t get, why doesn’t the world community, with the UN leading the way, demand that the Libyan government stop these boat launchings on their side of the Mediterranean in the first place?
The UN could then use its state-of-the-art refugee camp in Jordan, Al Azraq, by safely transporting these would-be mariners to it.
From the Minneapolis Star Tribune (emphasis mine):
VALLETTA, Malta — Syrian survivors of the latest shipwreck involving migrants in the Mediterranean Sea claim Libya’s coast guard fired on their boat after reaching it a couple of hours out of port, the U.N. refugee agency said Monday.
The survivors of last Friday’s shipwreck have told UNHCR that the Libyans opened fire after ordering the boat to stop, damaging the hull and wounding four people, the U.N. agency’s spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said from Geneva.
“The boat took on water, and people started coming up from below, which could have contributed to the capsizing, according to witness testimony,” Fleming said. She added that the four wounded were treated by doctors among the refugees on board.
UNHCR has asked Libya for an explanation based on the survivor accounts and the fact that people with bullet wounds have been among the more than 200 people rescued and taken to Malta and Italy.
The bodies of 34 people have been recovered, but survivors have told the U.N. that 400 to 500 people were on board, meaning more than 200 could still be missing.
Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zidan denied the allegations in a press conference Sunday during a visit by Malta Prime Minister Joseph Muscat to discuss the wave of refugees arriving by boat from Libya in Malta and Italy. He pledged an investigation.
UNHCR has expressed concern that Syrians escaping civil war are facing a perilous sea journey to reach safety in Europe.
In a related story, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah expressed his sorrow at the large number of Palestinians who were also on the doomed ship.
The program is grinding to a halt until possibly the end of the month. Church World Service (one of nine US State Department contractors) says some refugees may be delayed for three months.
Elizabeth Kaznak: might have to dig into private resources to pay our staff!
Here is the news (emphasis mine) from the Journal-Courier which begins with a sad tale (and intersperses sad tales in between the news-worthy bits):
Now more than 2 weeks old, the shutdown forced the U.S. State Department to suspend most refugee arrivals and enact a travel moratorium, partly because the financial, medical and federal benefits or services aren’t available in some areas to help newcomers from Somalia, Iraq, Myanmar, Bhutan and a host of other countries, officials said.
Although most expect Congress to reach an agreement to reopen the government, resettlement won’t restart until at least Oct. 28— and even then, the shutdown’s cascading effect on complex approval, documentation and travel logistics will delay many arrivals for months.
[….]
The shutdown “really has a domino effect,” said Darko Mihaylovich, director of Louisville’s Catholic Charities Migration and Refugee Services.
The Obama Administration had just announced on October 1 the goal of resettling 70,000 more refugees in FY2014, see here. Some delays might be as long as three months!
In Kentucky, October arrivals have been canceled across the commonwealth — 40 in Louisville, 19 in Lexington and 14 in Bowling Green and Owensboro — according to local and state resettlement officials.
Church World Service, one of a handful of federally approved resettlement agencies, reported that nearly half of the refugees under its authority, initially cleared for travel in October, will be delayed as long as three months.
Refugees here already shouldn’t worry yet—-they will still have their welfare benefits.
For the refugees already resettled in Louisville, help is still available. Mihaylovich said state aid such as food stamps and other aid have continued in Kentucky so far.
The shutdown has prevented some refugees from getting Social Security cards, which they need to obtain work permits.
Kaznak [Elizabeth Kaznak, executive director] of Kentucky Refugee Ministries said Kentucky Refugee Ministries, which operates on a tight budget, is having to use reserves to continue to pay caseworkers and provide services, partly because the shutdown has kept the agency from getting the federal reimbursement of $750 per arrival budgeted for October.
Maria Koerner, assistant director of the Kentucky Office for Refugees, said the shutdown has delayed disbursement of some of the $9 million in federal funding Kentucky gets annually to help pay for cash assistance and medical help for new arrivals, but so far it’s not harming services.
Check out Kentucky Refugee Ministries recent Form 990 (here). They took in $3.7 million (rounded number) in revenue in 2011. $3.3 million of that came from GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS while only $290,000 appears to have been privately raised (see p. 9). Just a reminder: these were supposed to be public-private partnerships when the refugee law was first enacted, not quasi-government agencies.
On page 10 we learn that they paid out $1.6 million for salaries and benefits. Office expenses and rent came out to approximately $285,000. So we can see things will be tight if the federal government (the taxpayer!) pipeline continues to slow.
Sure, looks like they don’t have much of a private reserve to fall back on.
For new readers, the Rohingya are Muslims, some of whom have lived in Burma, others in Bangladesh. They are often called “stateless” by the human rights industrial complex which has made them a cause celebre in a public relations campaign we have followed for over five years. We have a category specifically for Rohingya posts, here(156 previous posts!)
Chris Lewa of the Arakan Project, second from right, is quoted often in support of Rohingya.
Australians, fed up with the thousands of mostly Muslim illegal migrants coming to their shores in recent years, has elected a government which is sending signals that it won’t be a push-over as some recent governments have been on the subject of illegal immigration.
Here is an article in The Irrawaddywhich reports that Rohingya people (already in their own “cultural zones” of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Bangladesh) are now having second thoughts about trying to reach Australia. Emphasis below is mine.
KUALA LUMPUR — Australia’s clampdown on refugees and migrants trying to reach the country’s shores by boat has prompted uncertainty among Rohingya who, facing state oppression and attacks by Arakanese Buddhists, have fled Burma in the tens of thousands in recent years.
Since Australia’s now-ousted Labor government decided in July to prevent refugees traveling by sea from landing in Australia—saying that would-be arrivals would be taken to processing centers in neighboring Nauru and Papua New Guinea (PNG)—some Rohingya who had hopes of making it to Australia are now in a bind.
“We are disappointed, we feel like we are stuck,” said Zafar Ahmad Abdul Ghani, president of the Myanmar Ethnic Rohingya Human Rights Organization Malaysia (MERHOM). “Many of us do not have papers here [in Malaysia] and we have no status in Burma. It is a difficult situation for anyone who hoped to travel to Australia,” Ahmad told The Irrawaddy. [To “travel” or make an illegal run for Australian shores!—ed]
Thousands of Rohingya refugees undertake a treacherous maritime journey from western Burma to Thailand or Malaysia. From there some in turn hope to reach Australia, usually attempting another dangerous maritime crossing through the Indian Ocean.
[…..]
Rohingya arrivals to Australia are difficult to quantify, as those who do make it are listed as “stateless” by Australia, while some others who arrived in Australia over recent years claimed to be Rohingya but were assessed by Australia to be either Bangladeshi nationals or Burmese Muslims, according to Chris Lewa. [I suspect that those Rohingya getting into the US through refugee resettlement are being referred to as Burmese Muslims as well, since the word ‘Rohingya’ is associated with some pretty rough types.—ed]
Australian government statistics—covering the years from 1998 to 2012—list 2,204 stateless maritime arrivals to Australia, a cohort that includes Kurds, Palestinians and Rohingya.
The boat people issue became a major election issue as immigration restrictionist Tony Abbott was elected as the new Prime Minister last month.
A voter backlash against the arrival of over 40,000 asylum seekers since 2007, when policy was relaxed for a time, prompted both of Australia’s main parties to suggest tighter controls.
I found this bit of the story of interest too:
Indonesia is a common transit point for refugees trying to reach Australia, Rohingya included. At least 28 Middle Eastern migrants drowned when a boat, which was aiming to reach Christmas Island, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean, sank off Indonesia in late September.
Note they are simply referred to generically as ‘Middle Eastern’ migrants with no mention that they were Lebanese pretending to be Syrian refugees as our commenter ‘pungentpeppers’ reported here.
The photo is from this story about a UNHCR meeting in June. In a cursory search I can’t find a specific website for Lewa’s Arakan Project, lots of references to Lewa and the status of the Project as an NGO, but no website. if any industrious readers find one, let us know!
