U.S. to Begin Refugee Resettlement From Australian Detention Camp
The U.S. will begin interviews with refugees detained in an Australian-run camp in Papua New Guinea next month under a resettlement deal that has been shrouded in uncertainty since the election of Donald Trump, the Guardian reports.
A U.S. official visited the detention center on Manus Island several hours before Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20 and told refugees that resettlement interviews will begin in February, the newspaper said.
Australia announced in November that the U.S. will resettle an unspecified number of refugees from Manus Island and another Australian offshore refugee camp on the Pacific island of Nauru. The deal followed Australia’s pledge to resettle refugees from U.S.-run camps in Costa Rica.
A few days later, Donald Trump was elected U.S. president and Republican lawmakers have cast doubt on whether he will follow through on the deal.
Most of the people detained in the two camps have been granted refugee status, but are waiting for resettlement since Australia barred asylum seekers who try to reach the country by boat from ever settling there. Last April, Papua New Guinea’s supreme court ruled Australia’s indefinite detention of refugees on its territory unconstitutional and ordered the camp closed.
Appeal to Transfer Asylum Seekers From Greek Islands
Human Rights Watch has appealed to Greece and the European Union to immediately transfer asylum seekers living in dire conditions on the Greek islands to the mainland.
At least 14,336 asylum seekers are living on the islands, while official reception centers only have capacity for 8,375, the group said. Heavy snowfall this month highlighted poor living conditions on the islands, including some people living in snow-sodden tents.
Athens and the European Commission have been reluctant to transfer people to the mainland, fearing it will collapse last year’s E.U.-Turkey deal to deter refugee boats.
Yet local officials have warned that the islands are overwhelmed and appealed for help. E.U. migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos met with island mayors on Jan. 20 to assure them that more refugee accommodation would be built. The U.N. refugee agency also recently appealed for transfers to mainland Greece to be speeded up.
Human Rights Watch said the policy of containing asylum seekers on the islands for months violates the right to access asylum procedures enshrined in Greek law.
Deadly Car Bomb in Syrian Camp Near Jordan Border
At least four people were killed when a car bomb exploded in a refugee camp in Syria close to the Jordanian border, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Jordan’s Petra news agency said 14 people wounded in the blast in Rakban camp were treated in a nearby clinic and Jordan had not yet decided whether they could be evacuated to Jordanian hospitals.
Some 85,000 people are sheltering in the camp in the border area known as the berm. Jordan declared the area a closed military zone after a militant attack on a Jordanian military post, cutting off the camp residents from aid. A deal was reached to restart aid deliveries late last year.
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