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Humanitarian Issues Media Monitoring 3/25/2019
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Ebola outbreak in DRC surpasses 1000 cases, daily case rate on the rise
| International Rescue Comitee
As Ebola response workers face violence on an almost daily basis, working in partnership with the community is the key to bringing this outbreak to an end. -
Ebola Cases in Democratic Republic of Congo Have Surpassed 1,000
Mar 25, 2019 | TIME
By Hillary Leung
The number of Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo has surpassed 1,000 in the second-worst outbreak in history, with daily rates on the rise as response workers continue to face violence. -
More than 1,000 Ebola cases reported in outbreak
Mar 25, 2019 | CNN
By Madison Park
The deadly Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has surpassed 1,000 cases, according to the country's health ministry. -
Mozambique says death toll from cyclone and floods now 446
Mar 24, 2019 | The Irish Times
Mozambique has recorded more deaths from a cyclone and floods around southern Africa, a government minister said on Sunday, with hundreds left in camps after homes were destroyed. Cyclone Idai lashed the Mozambican port city of Beira with winds of up to 170km/h (105mph), then moved inland to Zimbabwe and Malawi, flattening buildings and putting the lives of millions at risk. -
Rich nations must renew support for refugees in Uganda
Mar 25, 2019 | Norwegian Refugee Council
Living conditions in some of Uganda´s largest refugee settlements are deteriorating due to a lack of funding and are resulting in refugees taking drastic measures to survive. The Norwegian Refugee Council calls on donor countries to take more responsibility for the 1.2 million refugees living in the poverty-stricken nation. -
Struggle of Rohingya refugee children to get their basic right to education
Mar 25, 2019 | Reliefweb
There are more than 25 million refugees in the world - over half of them under the age of 18. There are also 10 million stateless people who are denied a nationality and basic rights such as education, healthcare and freedom of movement. Only 61% of refugee children are enrolled in primary education compared to 91% of all the world's children. Just 23% of refugee children are enrolled in secondary school, against 84% globally. Many of the schools refugee children do attend are makeshift ones in camps.
Congo
Mozambique
Uganda
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Ebola outbreak in DRC surpasses 1000 cases, daily case rate on the rise
| International Rescue Comitee
As Ebola response workers face violence on an almost daily basis, working in partnership with the community is the key to bringing this outbreak to an end.Since the Ebola outbreak was declared in August, the confirmed and probable case count has now surpassed 1000;Case numbers are on the rise which is not what we expect at this stage in the outbreak that may last another six to twelve months;In the past week we have seen 58 new reported cases - this is the highest number in a week in 2019. There could still be many more which have not been reported;Working with the community is the key to getting this outbreak under control;IRC teams are supporting 59 facilities to improve infection prevention and control as well as working to protect women and children.
Butembo, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), March 24, 2019 — A thousand people have now contracted Ebola since the outbreak was declared in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in August. This tragic milestone is a reminder that this outbreak is not yet under control and in order to make progress more must be done to work in partnership with the affected community. The ongoing mistrust facing health workers and the response is a symptom of the years of insecurity they have endured, and a sign that those responding must work even harder to combat the stigma and misunderstanding held by some in the community.
Tariq Riebl, IRC’s Emergency Response Director in DRC said: “Alarmingly at this stage in the outbreak, the number of cases of Ebola is once again on the rise. In the past week we have seen 58 new cases - this is the highest number in a week in 2019. With mistrust and security issues, cases are likely to be going unreported and the true figure could be even higher. These numbers show that despite the hard work being done, this outbreak is far from over. Insecurity and violence has led to the IRC and other agencies being forced to frequently suspend programs, which time and again we have seen lead to a spike in cases.
“Data shows us that working with the community is the key to stopping this outbreak. Without greater engagement we will see more lives lost. IRC’s team in North Kivu are redoubling their efforts to understand the concerns of people living in the impacted communities and to work with them to quash this outbreak. In the past weeks IRC teams have run a series of community meetings to understand their concerns as well as establishing focal points within affected neighborhoods and villages.
“We are already almost seven months into this outbreak and at this stage we should be seeing the case rate declining, not on the rise. With an optimistic outlook this outbreak is predicted to last another six months -- but realistically we could be looking towards another year of fighting this disease. The Ministry of Health and partners including the IRC are working around the clock to curtail the outbreak as quickly as possible to reduce the loss of life and further damage to the community.”
Leading on infection prevention and control, the IRC is working in 59 health clinics, training health workers to recognize symptoms and safely triage and transfer suspected Ebola patients to treatment centers; as well as working in women’s and children’s protection and community sensitization.
With more than 13 million people in need of aid, DRC is one of the world’s most complex, chronic and long-standing humanitarian crises. The IRC has been working in the Democratic Republic of Congo since 1996 responding to the humanitarian crisis in the east. It has since evolved into one of the largest providers of humanitarian assistance and post-conflict development, with life-saving programming in health, economic recovery, women’s and children protection, and livelihoods.
https://www.rescue.org/press-release/ebola-outbreak-drc-surpasses-1000-cases-daily-case-rate-rise
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Ebola Cases in Democratic Republic of Congo Have Surpassed 1,000
Mar 25, 2019 | TIME
By Hillary Leung
The number of Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo has surpassed1,000 in the second-worst outbreak in history, with daily rates on the rise as response workers continue to face violence.
This past week saw 58 new cases, the highest number in a week in 2019, according to the International Rescue Committee (IRC).
The World Health Organization said 610 deaths have been reported since the outbreak was declared last August in the DRC’s northeastern provinces of North Kivu and Ituri.
“We are already almost seven months into this outbreak and at this stage we should be seeing the case rate declining, not on the rise,” said Tariq Riebl, IRC’s Emergency Response Director in the DRC.
“With mistrust and security issues, cases are likely to be going unreported and the true figure could be even higher,” he added.
Violence in the DRC has forced Ebola treatment facilities to shut, making response efforts difficult by contributing to the spread of the highly contagious virus. Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) suspended operations in the area on Feb. 28. The closure followed a spate of arson attacks on clinics, which killed at least one person and left the whereabouts of several patients who fled unknown.
U.S. government employees were also pulled out of the DRC last summer, and have not been a major part of the response effort since.
Last week, an Ebola death was confirmed in Bunia, a major city with a population of close to 1 million people in Ituri province.
The outbreak is the second worst in history after the 2014 West Africa epidemic, which killed more than 11,000 people, the IRC said in November 2018.
“With an optimistic outlook this outbreak is predicted to last another six months — but realistically we could be looking towards another year of fighting this disease,” Riebl said.
http://time.com/5557892/ebola-congo-drc-1000-cases/
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More than 1,000 Ebola cases reported in outbreak
Mar 25, 2019 | CNN
By Madison Park
(CNN)The deadly Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has surpassed 1,000 cases, according to the country's health ministry.The number of confirmed cases stands at 1,009, of which 944 are confirmed and 65 probable, in an outbreak that started in August. The death toll is at 629 -- 564 are confirmed from Ebola and 65 probable.It is the second-deadliest and second-largest Ebola outbreak in history, topped only by one in West Africa in 2014, when the disease killed more than 11,000 people, according to the World Health Organization."We use words like 'cases' and 'containment' to be scientific, but behind every number is a person, a family and a community that is suffering," said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general in a statement Saturday. "This outbreak has gone on far too long."
Last week, the WHO had reported a rise in the weekly rate of confirmed Ebola cases after several weeks of decline. The organization cited "increased security challenges, including the recent direct attacks on treatment centers, and pockets of community mistrust" as causes for the uptick.A police officer stands at the treatment center after Saturday's attack.Those security challenges include attacks on treatment facilities. Earlier this month, militants attacked an Ebola treatment center, killing a police officer. In February, two attacks on Ebola treatment centers in the province of North Kivu forced Doctors Without Borders (also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres or MSF) to put some humanitarian efforts on hold.So far, Ebola cases haven't spread outside of DRC's North Kivu and Ituri provinces, nor have any cases crossed international borders, according to the WHO.And it reported that more than 96,000 people have been vaccinated against Ebola in DRC, along with health workers in Uganda and South Sudan. More than 90% of those eligible for vaccination accept it, according to the WHO."As we mourn the lives lost, we must also recognize that thousands of people have been protected from this terrifying disease," said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, in a statement. "We are working in exceptionally challenging circumstances, but thanks to support from donors and the efforts of the Ministry of Health, WHO and partners, we have saved thousands of lives."
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/03/25/health/ebola-drc-who/index.html
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Mozambique says death toll from cyclone and floods now 446
Mar 24, 2019 | The Irish Times
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Mozambique has recorded more deaths from a cyclone and floods around southern Africa, a government minister said on Sunday, with hundreds left in camps after homes were destroyed. Cyclone Idai lashed the Mozambican port city of Beira with winds of up to 170km/h (105mph), then moved inland to Zimbabwe and Malawi, flattening buildings and putting the lives of millions at risk.
Mozambique’s land and environment minister, Celso Correia, told journalists that the death toll had risen to 446 from 417, adding that 531,000 people had been affected by the disaster and 110,000 were in camps.Zimbabwe toll
The storm has also killed scores of people in Zimbabwe, with the United Nations’ migration agency reporting that 259 people had been killed while its humanitarian arm OCHA said the death toll was at 154. Reuters could not immediately contact authorities in Zimbabwe. In Malawi, 56 people died in heavy rains ahead of the cyclone.
In all three countries, survivors have been digging through rubble to search for victims, and scrambling for shelter, food and water, while governments and aid agencies rush in help. The Mozambican minister had said on Saturday that some 1,500 people were in need of immediate rescue from rooftops and trees.Cholera
On Sunday he said the number of people who needed rescuing had came down dramatically, without giving a figure. The floods have raised the risk of cholera and other water-borne diseases, and Correia said the government was opening a cholera treatment centre in readiness of an outbreak.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/africa/mozambique-says-death-toll-from-cyclone-and-floods-now-446-1.3836994
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Rich nations must renew support for refugees in Uganda
Mar 25, 2019 | Norwegian Refugee Council
Living conditions in some of Uganda´s largest refugee settlements are deteriorating due to a lack of funding and are resulting in refugees taking drastic measures to survive. The Norwegian Refugee Council calls on donor countries to take more responsibility for the 1.2 million refugees living in the poverty-stricken nation.“Rich countries have broken their promises of international responsibility-sharing for handling the global refugee crisis. Nowhere is this more evident than in Uganda,” said AdamBouloukos, Uganda´s Country Director for the NRC.
“Unlike the US and many European countries, Uganda shouldered the so-called ´burden´ of the global refugee crisis, and opened its borders without complaint and showed humanity to their neighbours when others wouldn´t. Still, there have been damaging cuts in life-saving aid by the international community, who are shamefully neglecting this growing crisis,” he explained.
Last year’s response plan estimated that about $220 million was needed to respond to the large influx of refugees from DR Congo. Of this, less than 40 per cent was funded. The response to the large number of refugees from South Sudan, the highest number of refugees in Uganda, was also gravely under-funded.
“In some ways, Uganda is a victim of the international community´s perception that it could cope with the influx of refugees. But nothing could be further from the truth. Uganda is already struggling with a huge range of social and economic challenges. The refugee population adds to those challenges and as such, the country needs support to address the massive needs,” he said.
Some South Sudanese refugees have returned home despite fresh violence in several provinces across the border, due to poor living standards and a lack of opportunities in the settlements in Uganda.
Anna, a 37-year-old refugee from South Sudan said: “We only have one meal a day. To meet some of the other basic needs like fuel, we have to sell or exchange our rations, so we always run out of food before the next distribution.”
Recent incidents of mismanaged donor funding have not helped the situation. The NRC stresses the need for donor countries to ensure that in light of such cases, mechanisms should be put in place to reallocate funds rather than freeze them.
“Any temporary or permanent disruption to humanitarian funding in Uganda will invariably have ramifications for some of the world’s most vulnerable people. Donor countries must ensure that refugees and host communities are not punished for the failings of others,” Bouloukos noted.
https://www.nrc.no/news/2019/march/rich-nations-must-renew-support-for-refugees-in-uganda/
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Struggle of Rohingya refugee children to get their basic right to education
Mar 25, 2019 | Reliefweb
There are more than 25 million refugees in the world - over half of them under the age of 18. There are also 10 million stateless people who are denied a nationality and basic rights such as education, healthcare and freedom of movement.
Only 61% of refugee children are enrolled in primary education compared to 91% of all the world's children. Just 23% of refugee children are enrolled in secondary school, against 84% globally. Many of the schools refugee children do attend are makeshift ones in camps.
Here, the Reuters news agency looks at the specific plight of Rohingya refugee children whose families fled from ethnic violence in Myanmar into neighbouring Bangladesh. Over a million Rohingya refugees have left in successive waves of displacement since the early 1990s - including over 720,000 since August 2017.
Sixteen-year-old Kefayat Ullah walked to his school in southern Bangladesh in late January, as he had done most days for the previous six years, to find that - despite being one of the top students in his class - he had been expelled.
A government investigation had outed him, along with dozens of his classmates, as a Rohingya refugee - a member of the mostly stateless Muslim minority from neighbouring Myanmar.
"Our headmaster called us into his office and told us that there's an order that Rohingya students have no rights to study here anymore," said the teenager, a small boy with cropped hair and a faint moustache. "We went back home crying."
For years, Bangladeshi schools have quietly admitted some of the Rohingya who live as refugees in sprawling camps on the country's southern coast, and whose numbers have swelled to more than one million since violence across the border in 2017.
But the new influx has tested the hospitality of the Bangladeshi government, leading them to apply tighter controls on the population.
The recent expulsions highlight the struggle of hundreds of thousands of children desperate to study in the world's largest refugee settlement, but at risk of missing out on crucial years of education and the chance to obtain formal qualifications.
More than 730,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar after a military campaign in late 2017 that the United Nations has said was executed with "genocidal intent". Thousands more, like Kefayat, were born in Bangladesh after their parents fled earlier waves of violence.
Though Myanmar says it is ready to welcome back the refugees, northern Rakhine state - from where they fled - is still riven by ethnic tensions and violence and the UN has said conditions are not right for them to return.
Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, meanwhile, has said the country cannot afford to integrate them.
In some countries, governments allow refugees to study in local schools, allowing them to gain recognised qualifications, or permit institutions in the camps to teach the national curriculum.
But Bangladesh has not recognised the vast majority of the Rohingya as refugees and does not issue birth certificates for those born in the camps, making their legal status unclear.
The government has also forbidden centres in the camps from teaching the Bangladesh curriculum, according to the UN children's agency UNICEF.
"Many students are depressed and frustrated," said a 21-year-old who asked not to be named because he was continuing to pass as Bangladeshi so he could go to university.
"Yes, we are somehow pretending to be Bangladeshi students. Yes, we have got some education. But now, where will we go? The world should think about this: if we can't study, our future will be damaged. We are hungry for education."
In the headmaster's office at Leda High School, piles of textbooks inscribed with the names of some of the 64 expelled students lay stacked in a corner.
"We are very sorry and disappointed about the decision," said the principal Jamal Uddin. "The government is providing everything for the Rohingya – why not education?"
But others were relieved. Eighteen months on from the start of the crisis, and with no resolution in sight, some local people are losing patience.
In the grassy playground of the school, its founder, 48-year-old Kamal Uddin Ahmed, said the arrival of the Rohingya had been a massive upheaval for the local area.
"How do you think I feel?" he said. "We don't mind the Rohingya but we mind our lives."
Intelligence officials who visited said it was "not safe for the country, not safe for our people" to have Rohingya in schools, he said.
Rohingya have been accused by some of bringing drugs and crime to Bangladesh.
In a letter to local headmasters dated January, Bangladesh's Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commission Chief Abul Kalam said that an intelligence report on the situation had been filed with the prime minister's office in November.
"It has been seen the trend of Rohingya children's participation in getting education has been increasing," Kalam said in the letter, seen by Reuters, adding that some Rohingya had obtained fake Bangladeshi identity documents through "dishonest public representatives".
"It is advised to monitor strictly so that no Rohingya children can take education outside the camps or elsewhere in Bangladesh," he said.
Asked about his order to expel Rohingya children from local schools, Kalam said they were getting an education from learning centres in the camps.
"They are not allowed to enrol in Bangladeshi schools as they are not Bangladeshi citizens," he said.
But many children and their parents say the hundreds of learning centres operated in the camps by international NGOs and the UN offer mostly unstructured learning and playtime.
Bob Rae, Canada's Special Envoy to Myanmar, who has also travelled to Bangladesh, said Bangladesh authorities including Sheikh Hasina "have emphasised that the refugee camp is supposed to be 'short term' and that to talk about schooling beyond learning centres for very young children would risk giving the impression, to Myanmar and the world, that camps were there to stay".
In the camps, many children study by themselves from tattered textbooks carried from Myanmar or purchased at local markets, where stalls ply a swift trade in copies of the Myanmar curriculum smuggled across the border. Recent fighting in the region has made imports tougher, one stall owner said.
"There are many Rohingya who can't get the Myanmar curriculum – we are doing this so we can help them," said 20-year-old Nurul Ansur, the Bangladeshi proprietor of a print shop which specialises in copies of the textbooks, pulling a copy of 'Grade One Primer, Basic Education' from a filing cabinet.
A makeshift school staffed with Rohingya volunteer teachers opened in February, though the headteacher said they had no official permission to operate.
Karen Reidy, a communications officer at UNICEF, which leads education programming in the camps, said efforts were under way to adapt other countries' curriculums into a "learning framework" for refugee children.
"There's a risk in the camps that we will see a lost generation of children if we don't manage to catch them with education, with skills and training at this critical point in their lives," she said.
At Nayapara camp, the expelled students recounted stories from years of illicit study at the Bangladeshi schools. Some of their classmates were cruel, said Kefayat Ullah.
"They used the word 'Rohingya', 'Burma' to tease us," he said. "Nevertheless, we were happy. We need education."
One 15-year-old, Mohammed Yunus, said he had worked in a brick field to pay for classes that his parents could not afford.
"Bangladesh wants to see us a good community," he said. "Also the UN wants to see us a good community - but if they block our education, how can we be?"
Kefayat Ullah had dreamed of graduating and becoming a journalist "to help our community". Now he watches his Bangladeshi former classmates travel to and from class in their crisp white shirts.
"We feel sad when we see the local students studying in a nice place, quietly," he said. "Now we are always worried and thinking – what will we do?"
https://reliefweb.int/report/bangladesh/struggle-rohingya-refugee-children-get-their-basic-right-education
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