Humanitarian news

BISSAU Wednesday, October 15, 2008 (IRIN) - Child trafficking from Guinea-Bissau to Senegal is on the decline, partly due to better collaboration among local residents, civil society groups and government, local authorities said.

AGADEZ Wednesday, October 15, 2008 (IRIN) - Despite recently reinforced border security agreements between Mali and Algeria and between Libya and Niger, Nigerien ethnic Tuareg smugglers told IRIN their desert convoys through the Air Mountains are as profitable as ever. They smuggle West African migrants to North Africa, where some continue to Europe. IRIN met with three people-smugglers in Agadez from 7 to 9 October as they departed on one of their mountainous desert passages.

BEIRUT Wednesday, October 15, 2008 (IRIN) - Children of domestic workers in Lebanon are an invisible segment of society. Many of the estimated 200,000 migrant domestics living in Lebanon - most of them women from the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia - have no legal status in the country.

SANAA Monday, October 13, 2008 (IRIN) - The continuous influx of African migrants into Yemen is straining the country’s resources.

MBABANE Thursday, October 09, 2008 (IRIN) - King Mswati has directed Swaziland's college graduates to leave the country to find employment, admitting that a lack of jobs at home gives them no alternative.

AGADEZ Thursday, October 09, 2008 (IRIN) - AGADEZ, Freddy Kasseri, 23, travelled from Ghana to Niger intending to cross the desert into Libya. He did not make it. Libyan security forces return migrants via land to a military post in northern Niger, where the migrants are turned over to Nigerien soldiers. Kasseri was transferred 650km to Agadez, where he is working to save money for a second attempt.

AGADEZ Thursday, October 09, 2008 (IRIN) - Sub-Saharan migrants continue attempting dangerous and illegal crossings into Libya and Algeria. They pick their way through Niger’s Air mountains, circumventing a mountain rebellion, increased mountain banditry, and North African border crackdowns, according to migrants and smugglers in Niger’s mountain gateway town of Agadez.

AGADEZ Thursday, October 09, 2008 (IRIN) - The International Organization for Migration estimates that up to 35,000 sub-Saharan clandestine migrants leave for North Africa and Europe every year. But researchers concede the near impossibility to track what is carried out in secrecy, facilitated by family connections and favours, bribes and beatings. Despite increased security crackdowns and forced mass expulsions by North African security forces, thousands of West African migrants still attempt the desert crossing from northern Niger through the gateway town of Agadez. The following migrants IRIN met asked to remain anonymous.

BAMAKO Tuesday, October 07, 2008 (IRIN) - The European Union (EU) has opened its first multi-million dollar immigration centre in West Africa, but returnee migrants told IRIN the Bamako centre would not change their minds about migrating without visas.

ABUJA Thursday, September 25, 2008 (IRIN) - The Nigerian government has announced it is unprepared for the tens of thousands of returnees who have fled the southern Bakassi province over the past month, and is calling on the UN to help it handle the unexpected return.

BATKEN Thursday, September 25, 2008 (IRIN) - Five-year-old Yrysbek has been going to the Liliya community kindergarten in Boz-Adyr village for the past several months. "We play here, watch TV and teachers tell us stories. I like it here," he said.

JOHANNESBURG Tuesday, September 23, 2008 (IRIN) - Children, the elderly and female-headed households are among the most affected by illegal evictions, according to a report released on 23 September by the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC).

JOHANNESBURG Monday, September 22, 2008 (IRIN) - Hundreds of thousands of undocumented Namibian children may be deprived of social service benefits, but a new government initiative launched at one of the country’s busiest hospitals hopes to change all that.

JOHANNESBURG Friday, September 19, 2008 (IRIN) - Zimbabwe's political agreement is yet to reverse the flow of migrants looking for a better life in South Africa; smuggling people in and food out remains a thriving business, with long-distance drivers competing for a slice of the action.

ADDIS ABABA Wednesday, September 17, 2008 (IRIN) - The Somali region of south-eastern Ethiopia is facing critical food and water shortages, with many families eating only one meal a day and others migrating to urban areas, the UN and aid agencies said.

COTONOU Wednesday, September 17, 2008 (IRIN) - If you live along the main highway linking Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire's economic hub, with Lagos in Nigeria, it is almost impossible to ignore the many AIDS awareness messages along the route, travelled by 47 million people each year.

JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, September 17, 2008 (IRIN) - An interim order by South Africa's Constitutional Court could keep temporary shelters open for the foreigners displaced by xenophobic violence earlier this year - or it could leave more than 4,000 camp residents out on the street.

MONROVIA Tuesday, September 16, 2008 (IRIN) - Hundreds of residents along Monrovia’s coast have lost, or are still blocked from their homes nearly two months after storms started on 20 July 2008, according to relief workers.

HARARE Friday, September 12, 2008 (IRIN) - Hope has been resuscitated among long-suffering Zimbabweans after a power-sharing deal between President Robert Mugabe and his rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, was announced late on 11 September.

ABUJA Thursday, September 11, 2008 (IRIN) - Up to 100,000 Nigerians displaced from Bakassi in southern Nigeria are sheltering in makeshift camps 10 kilometres away in the state of Akwa Ibom. More keep arriving according to the Nigerian Red Cross, leading local authorities to fear an impending humanitarian crisis.