Refugees Archives - Voice of the Cape

After fleeing war, Syria refugees in France face hurdles integrating

Syrians who fled violence in their country and sought sanctuary in France are having a hard time integrating with locals, Anadolu News Agency reports. When the war in Syria began in 2011, French-Algerian journalist, Khaled Sid Mohand, was detained and imprisoned for 24 days while covering events in Damascus. He spoke to Anadolu about the conditions Syrian refugees face in France and the prejudice that migrants experience. According to Mohand, France denied the asylum requests […]

31 January 2023

International

Will Erdogan hand the refugees back to the Syrian regime?

INTERNATIONAL Last week, Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar met with his Russian and Syrian counterparts, Sergei Shoigu and Ali Mahmoud Abbas respectively, in Moscow, in what was the first official contact between Ankara and Damascus at the ministerial level in eleven years. The heads of Turkish and Syrian intelligence were also there. The Moscow meeting came after statements made by Turkiye's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the roadmap to normalisation […]

5 January 2023

International

Lebanon buses refugees back to Syria as repatriation plan starts

INTERNATIONAL Several buses transported Syrian refugee families to Syria from different areas in Lebanon on Wednesday morning, as part of a government repatriation scheme revived earlier this month, local media reported. Convoys from Nabatieh, Tripoli, and Arsal, in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, carried around 750 refugees to border crossings despite concerns from rights groups that the policy may have involved elements of coercion. Repatriations are taking place through the Masnaa border crossing on the Lebanese-Syrian border in the eastern Bekaa […]

26 October 2022

International News

India: Fire rips through Rohingya camp, leaving hundreds homeless

A massive fire has destroyed a Rohingya refugee camp in the Indian capital, New Delhi, leaving hundreds of people homeless. The blaze broke out at about 11:30pm on Saturday and quickly spread through the camp, reducing 55 ramshackle shelters to ashes in the Madanpur Khadar area in the capital city’s south. No deaths or serious injuries have been reported in the fire – the second time the camp has been […]

14 June 2021

International News

Biden raises refugee admissions cap to 62,500 after criticism

Joe Biden is raising the United States’ refugee admissions cap to 62,500 for this fiscal year after refugee advocates slammed the US president last month for walking back an earlier pledge to increase the limit. In a statement on Monday, Biden said the new cap would “reinforce efforts that are already underway to expand the United States’ capacity to admit refugees”, as well as help his administration reach its stated […]

4 May 2021

International News

UN expert wants scrutiny of conditions at Bhasan Char

A United Nations human rights expert has called for an independent assessment on the conditions at Bhasan Char, the remote island in Bangladesh where more than a thousand Rohingya were taken earlier this month, as he condemned the world’s “failure” to take action to help the refugees return home to Myanmar. The 1,642 Rohingya refugees were moved to Bhasan Char island before the UN could even determine whether or not […]

11 December 2020

International News

Beirut explosion: Syrian refugees feel double the loss after port blast

Nearly a month and a half after the explosion that devastated Beirut, Syrian refugees say they feel forgotten and abandoned as they struggle to recover in the aftermath of the blast and are left to rebuild their lives yet again in Lebanon. On 4 August, some 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate detonated in the Beirut port, killing nearly 200 people - including at least 43 Syrians - and wounding thousands. […]

16 September 2020

International News

Malaysian authorities hold 202 Rohingya from boat off Langkawi

Malaysian authorities have detained more than 200 ethnic Rohingya, including five children, after they intercepted a boat off the coast of the northwestern island of Langkawi. The wooden vessel was found adrift just over one nautical mile (2.2 kilometres) from one of the island's luxury beach resorts on Sunday morning, the Malaysian maritime enforcement agency said in a statement. The group of 152 men, 45 women and five children were […]

6 April 2020

Local

Police remove foreign nationals from Methodist Church in Cape Town

An estimated 500 foreign nationals have been removed from the Central Methodist Church in Cape Town, despite attempts to resist the police operation by locking themselves inside the building. The police moved in by breaking the doors on both entrances and escorted them to a number of buses waiting outside. The group is being transported to the new site in Bellville. They will be housed in a marquee that can […]

3 April 2020

Refugees

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