KHARTOUM: Some 110 million people have had to flee their homes because of conflict, persecution, or human rights violations, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees says. The war in Sudan, which has displaced nearly 2 million people since April, is but the latest in a long list of crises that has led to the record-breaking figure.
“It’s quite an indictment on the state of our world,” Filippo Grandi, who leads the UN refugee agency, told reporters in Geneva ahead of the publication Wednesday of UNHCR’s Global Trends Report for 2022.
Last year alone, an additional 19 million people were forcibly displaced including more than 11 million who fled Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in what became the fastest and largest displacement of people since World War II.
“We are constantly confronted with emergencies,” Grandi said. Last year the agency recorded 35 emergencies, three to four times more than in previous years. “Very few make your headlines,” Grandi added, arguing that the war in Sudan fell off most front pages after Western citizens were evacuated.
Conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Myanmar were also responsible for displacing more than 1 million people within each country in 2022.
The majority of the displaced globally have sought refuge within their nation’s borders. One-third of them — 35 million — have fled to other countries, making them refugees, according to the UNHCR report. Most refugees are hosted by low to middle-income countries in Asia and Africa, not rich countries in Europe or North America, Grandi said.
Turkiye currently hosts the most refugees with 3.8 million people, mostly Syrians who fled the civil war, followed by Iran with 3.4 million refugees, mostly Afghans. But there are also 5.7 million Ukrainian refugees scattered across countries in Europe and beyond. The number of stateless people has also risen in 2022 to 4.4 million, according to UNHCR data, but this is believed to be an underestimate.
Regarding asylum claims, the US was the country to receive the most new applications in 2022 with 730,400 claims. It’s also the nation with the largest backlog in its asylum system, Grandi said.
“One of the things that needs to be done is reforming that asylum system so that it becomes more rapid, more efficient,” he said.
The United States, Spain and Canada recently announced plans to create asylum processing centers in Latin America with the goal of reducing the number of people who trek their way north to the Mexico-US border.
As the number of asylum-seekers grows, so have the challenges facing them. “We see pushbacks. We see tougher and tougher immigration or refugee admission rules. We see in many countries the criminalization of immigrants and refugees, blaming them for everything that has happened,” Grandi said.
Last week European leaders renewed financial promises to North African nations in the hopes of stemming migration across the Mediterranean while the British government insists on a so-far failed plan to ship asylum-seekers to Rwanda, something UNHCR is opposed to. But there were also some wins, Grandi said, pointing to what he described as a positive sign in the European Union’s negotiations for a new migration and asylum pact, despite criticism from human rights groups.
Grandi also celebrated the fact that the number of refugees resettled in 2022 doubled to 114,000 from the previous year. But he admitted this was “still a drop in the ocean.”
110 million people forcibly displaced as Sudan, Ukraine wars add to world refugee crisis
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110 million people forcibly displaced as Sudan, Ukraine wars add to world refugee crisis
- More than 11 million fled Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine
- Majority of the displaced globally have sought refuge within their nation’s borders
Iranians told to use less water as heatwave worsens shortages
- Iranian authorities have urged residents to limit water consumption as the country grapples with severe shortages amid an ongoing heatwave, local media said Sunday
Water scarcity is a major issue in Iran, particularly in arid provinces in the country’s south, with shortages blamed on mismanagement and overexploitation of underground resources as well as the growing impact of climate change.
On Saturday, the national meteorological service said Iran was experiencing its hottest week of the year so far, with temperatures exceeding 50C in some areas.
“People should conserve water to avoid drops in pressure,” said Tehran city council chair Mehdi Chamran, according to the ISNA news agency.
Authorities across Iran have issued similar appeals in recent days, asking residents in several provinces to limit water usage.
Tehran’s provincial water management company called to reduce usage by “at least 20 percent” to help ease the shortages.
In a statement, it said that “the reservoirs of the dams supplying water to Tehran are currently at their lowest level in a century” following years of steady decline in rainfall.
Javan, a conservative newspaper, reported on Saturday that authorities had reduced water pressure in parts of the capital in a bid to mitigate the crisis, resulting in “water outages lasting between 12 and 18 hours” in some areas.
Egypt uncovers Brotherhood-linked plot to target security and economic facilities: ministry
CAIRO: The Egyptian interior ministry on Sunday said it has uncovered a plot by the armed wing of the Muslim Brotherhood group aiming to target security and economic facilities.
According to a press statement by Egypt’s Interior Ministry, elements who plotted the attacks were linked to the so-called Hasm Movement, which was affiliated with the banned Muslim Brotherhood.
It also said Hasm plotted to push one of its fugitive members to infiltrate the country via a border state in order to commit “hostile operations targeting security and economic facilities in Egypt.”
The statement said Egypt’s National Security sector was able to identify the Hasm leaders behind the plan.
The group was also labelled as a terrorist entity in both the United Kingdom and the United States.
Israel orders civilians out of central Gaza ahead of new campaign
- The military’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said in a post on X that residents and displaced Palestinians sheltering in the Deir el-Balah area should evacuate immediately
GAZA: The Israeli military on Sunday issued an evacuation order for Palestinians in the central Gaza Strip, warning of imminent action against Hamas militants in an area “where it has not operated before.”
The military’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said in a post on X that residents and displaced Palestinians sheltering in the Deir el-Balah area should evacuate immediately.
Israel was “expanding its activities” around Deir el-Balah, including “in an area where it has not operated before,” Adraee said, telling Palestinians to “move south toward the Al-Mawasi area” on the Mediterranean coast “for your safety.”
Most of Gaza’s population of more than two million people have been displaced at least once during the war, which is now in its 22nd month, with repeated Israeli evacuation calls covering large parts of the coastal territory.
The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said in January that more than 80 percent of the Gaza Strip was under unrevoked Israeli evacuation orders.
Families of hostages held in Gaza since October 7, 2023 said they feared the expansion of the Israeli offensive could harm their loved ones.
In a statement released by a campaign group, they called for Israeli authorities to “urgently explain to Israeli citizens and families what the fighting plan is and how exactly it protects the abductees who are still in Gaza.”
On the ground, Gaza’s civil defense agency told AFP on Sunday that Israeli strikes overnight killed at least seven people in Gaza City and in parts of the territory’s south.
Delegations from Israel and militant group Hamas have spent the last two weeks in indirect talks for a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza and the release of 10 living hostages.
Of the 251 hostages taken during in 2023, 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
Families rallied in Israel’s economic hub of Tel Aviv on Saturday, calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump to secure the return of the captives and end the war.
Meanwhile a military statement said Israeli forces had stepped up ground operations in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza, killing “dozens of terrorists” and dismantling “hundreds of terrorist infrastructure.”
“Underground terror tunnels” in the area stretching 2.7 kilometers (just over 1.5 miles) some 20 meters underground were located and dismantled, it said.
Israeli’s military offensive on Gaza has killed at least 58,765 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry.
‘No life without water’: settler attacks threaten West Bank communities
- Israeli settlers recently attacked the system of wells, pumps and pipelines of the Ein Samiyah spring
- The damage to Ein Samiyah’s water facilities was not an isolated incident
KAFR MALIK, Palestinian Territories: From his monitoring station on a remote hill in the occupied West Bank, water operator Subhil Olayan keeps watch over a lifeline for Palestinians, the Ein Samiyah spring.
So when Israeli settlers recently attacked the system of wells, pumps and pipelines he oversees, he knew the stakes.
“There is no life without water, of course,” he said, following the attack which temporarily cut off the water supply to nearby villages.
The spring, which feeds the pumping station, is the main or backup water source for some 110,000 people, according to the Palestinian company that manages it – making it one of the most vital in the West Bank, where water is in chronic short supply.
The attack is one of several recent incidents in which settlers have been accused of damaging, diverting or seizing control of Palestinian water sources.
“The settlers came and the first thing they did was break the pipeline. And when the pipeline is broken, we automatically have to stop pumping” water to nearby villages, some of which exclusively rely on the Ein Samiyah spring.
“The water just goes into the dirt, into the ground,” Olayan said, adding that workers immediately fixed the damage to resume water supply.
Just two days after the latest attack, Israeli settlers – some of them armed – splashed in pools just below the spring, while Olayan monitored water pressure and cameras from a distance.
His software showed normal pressure in the pipes pulling water from the wells and the large pipe carrying water up the hill to his village of Kafr Malik.
But he said maintenance teams dared not venture down to the pumping station out of fear for their safety.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, deadly settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank have become commonplace.
Last week, settlers beat a 20-year-old dual US citizen to death in the nearby village of Sinjil, prompting US ambassador Mike Huckabee to urge Israel to “aggressively investigate” the killing.
Issa Qassis, chairman on the board of the Jerusalem Water Undertaking, which manages the Ein Samiyah spring, said he viewed the attacks as a tool for Israeli land grabs and annexation.
“When you restrict water supply in certain areas, people simply move where water is available,” he said at a press conference.
“So in a plan to move people to other lands, water is the best and fastest way,” he said.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, several Israeli politicians and officials have become increasingly vocal in support of annexing the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.
Most prominent among them is Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler, who said in November that 2025 would be the year Israel applies its sovereignty over the Palestinian territory.
Qassis accused Israel’s government of supporting settler attacks such as the one on Ein Samiyah.
The Israeli army said that soldiers were not aware of the incident in which pipes were damaged, “and therefore were unable to prevent it.”
The damage to Ein Samiyah’s water facilities was not an isolated incident.
In recent months, settlers in the nearby Jordan Valley took control of the Al-Auja spring by diverting its water from upstream, said Farhan Ghawanmeh, a representative of the Ras Ein Al Auja community.
He said two other springs in the area had also recently been taken over.
In Dura Al-Qaraa, another West Bank village that uses the Ein Samiyah spring as a back-up water source, residents are also concerned about increasingly long droughts and the way Israel regulates their water rights.
“For years now, no one has been planting because the water levels have decreased,” said Rafeaa Qasim, a member of the village council, citing lower rainfall causing the land to be “basically abandoned.”
Qasim said that though water shortages in the village have existed for 30 years, residents’ hands are tied in the face of this challenge.
“We have no options; digging a well is not allowed,” despite the presence of local water springs, he said, pointing to a well project that the UN and World Bank rejected due to Israeli law prohibiting drilling in the area.
The lands chosen for drilling sit in the West Bank’s Area C, which covers more than 60 percent of the territory and is under full Israeli control.
Israeli NGO B’Tselem reported in 2023 that the legal system led to sharp disparities in water access within the West Bank between Palestinians and Israelis.
Whereas nearly all residents of Israel and Israeli settlements have running water every day, only 36 percent of West Bank Palestinians do, the report said.
In Dura Al-Qaraa, Qasim fears for the future.
“Each year, the water decreases and the crisis grows – it’s not getting better, it’s getting worse.”
Syria interior ministry says Sweida clashes have ‘halted’
- Violence between the Druze and Bedouin groups that began on July 13 has left an estimated 940 dead
DAMASCUS: Tribal fighters have been evacuated from Syria’s southern city of Sweida and violent clashes have ceased, the country’s interior ministry said late Saturday.
“After intensive efforts by the Ministry of Interior to implement the ceasefire agreement, following the deployment of its forces in the northern and western regions of Sweida Governorate, the city of Sweida was evacuated of all tribal fighters, and clashes within the city’s neighborhoods were halted,” interior ministry spokesman Noureddine Al-Baba said in a post on Telegram.
In Washington, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called on the Syrian government’s security forces to prevent “jihadists from entering and ”carrying out massacres“ in the conflict-stricken south of the country.
”If authorities in Damascus want to preserve any chance of achieving a unified, inclusive and peaceful Syria... they must help end this calamity by using their security forces to prevent Daesh and any other violent terrorists from entering the area and carrying out massacres,“ Rubio said in a statement posted to X.
Sectarian clashes between armed Bedouin forces and the Druze in the community’s Sweida heartland had drawn in Syria’s Islamist-led government, Israel and other armed tribes.
US-brokered negotiations have sought to avert further Israeli military intervention, with Syrian forces agreeing to withdraw from the region.
“The US has remained heavily involved over the last three days with Israel, Jordan and authorities in Damascus on the horrifying & dangerous developments in southern Syria,” Rubio said.
He called for the Syrian government to “hold accountable and bring to justice anyone guilty of atrocities including those in their own ranks.”
“Furthermore the fighting between Druze and Bedouin groups inside the perimeter must also stop immediately,” Rubio added.
Once in control of large swathes of Syria, the Daesh was territorially defeated in Syria in 2019 largely due to the efforts of Kurdish-led forces supported by an international coalition.
Violence between the Druze and Bedouin groups that began on July 13 has left an estimated 940 dead, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor.
The count included 326 Druze fighters and 262 Druze civilians, 165 of whom were summarily executed, according to the Observatory.
The monitor also included 312 government security personnel and 21 Sunni Bedouin in the toll.
