As a coalition of 16 international and regional civil society organizations, we are writing to seek your urgent support in addressing the precarious situation in South Sudan. Delays in implementation of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS) and the recent six-month extension of the…
En décembre 2018, deux semaines seulement avant les élections nationales, des centaines de personnes ont été tuées lors d’un massacre en République démocratique du Congo (RDC). Les scènes sinistres ne se sont pas déroulées à l’Est, où la violence armée a causé la mort de nombreuses victimes depuis des décennies. Cette fois-ci, l’horreur s’est perpétrée…
In December 2018, only two weeks before national elections, hundreds of people were killed in a massacre in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This time, the grim scenes did not play out in the east, where armed violence has marked people’s lives for decades, but in western Congo, 300 km northeast of the capital…
Statement to the Ministerial Conference on the Eradication of Statelessness in the Great Lakes Region, 16-18 April 2019 (18 April 2019 Nairobi, Kenya) Your Excellencies, Honourable Ministers and Principle Secretaries, Ambassadors and Plenipotentiaries, Head of Division for Humanitarian Affairs of the African Union Commission, Director of the Africa Bureau of the UNHCR, Special Envoy for the…
“Unfortunately, it is difficult to meet our needs. I did not receive any support, when we just came back from exile. […] The major problem we face is feeding our families. Even the members of my family who welcomed us are exhausted.”[1] This woman and thousands like her who have repatriated to Burundi are urgently…
One of the slums in Kibuye, Kampala where urban refugees live. Picture extracted from video by scidevnet Contrary to public perception, the majority of refugees live in cities and towns rather than camps. In these urban spaces, some send their children to school, generate livelihoods and successfully negotiate their own way through exile. Others barely…
Statelessness affects ten thousands of people in East Africa. Being stateless has significant negative impact on the lives of affected persons – who are unable to access fundamental rights to which they are entitled under human rights law, but which require state mediation to access in practice. Without identification documents they are not able to…
En RDC, l’Église catholique affirme “que les données en sa possession […] consacrent le choix d’un candidat comme président de la République”. Quand les voix du seigneur soufflent le nom du futur président. C’est une véritable bombe qu’ont larguée les dignitaires de l’Église catholique du Congo ce jeudi. Fort de ses 40 000 observateurs envoyés…
Finally, they are taking place. On 23 December, citizens in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are going to the polls. After more than two years of postponements, it now looks like in January a new president will be sworn in. This might look like the first peaceful transition of power since the country’s…
Photo by Stefanie Glinski/IRIN More than four million South Sudanese, a third of the country’s population, have been forced to flee their homes during the last five years. Without an effort to include their views – not just those of the country’s political elite – lasting peace will be difficult to achieve. The signing in…
As South Sudanese and international actors evaluate the potential of the recently signed agreement to move the country towards peace, the International Refugee Rights Initiative has released a new report highlighting the views of South Sudanese citizens, both who have remained at home and the displaced, on dialogue and peace agreements. Although the research was…
Uganda’s refugee policy urgently needs an honest discussion, if sustainable solutions for both refugees and host communities are to be found, a new policy paper by International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI) reveals. The paper, entitled Uganda’s refugee policies: the history, the politics, the way forward puts the “Ugandan model” in its historical and political…
Re: Creating a dedicated country-wide human rights monitoring and reporting mechanism on the Democratic Republic of Congo at the UN Human Rights Council Geneva, 5 September 2018 Your excellency, We, the undersigned Congolese, regional, and international organizations, write to urge your delegation to support the creation of a country-wide human rights monitoring and reporting…
Issue 95, September 2018 ISSN 2049-2650 Editorial Team: Catherine Tyson, Nejla Sammakia, Mohamed ElSayeh, Kavita Kapur, Joshua Lowe, Christian Jorgensen, Cristina de Nicolas, Nicolas Parent, and Taylor Brooks. Chief Editor: Themba Lewis Web links are in blue. ___________ In this issue: SPECIAL TRIBUTE: DR BARBARA HARRELL-BOND, OBE External tributes to Dr Barbara Harrell-Bond, OBE Statement:…
For many years, Rwandan refugees in Uganda have faced abuses, including arbitrary detention, forced return to Rwanda and attacks on their physical security, without any form of accountability. However, last Friday, 24 August, former Inspector-General of the Ugandan police, General Kale Kayihura, has been charged with aiding and abetting the kidnapping and repatriation of…
With words and actions, the Tanzanian is pressuring Burundian refugees to go home, putting them at greater risk of abuses.
On 7 August, South Sudan’s president and main opposition leaders signed a new deal, which allows for the inclusion of the latter in the country’s government and is supposed to end the conflict that has ravaged the country since it started in late 2013. Despite hopeful statements by the signatories and its guarantors, this…
A new policy paper by the International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI) examines Eritrean asylum seekers’ ability to access refugee status in Uganda. It shows how the combination of low recognition rates, the proliferation of informal interlocutors and corruption all render refugee status increasingly inaccessible to Eritreans and undermine the efficiency of the Ugandan asylum system….
In July 2016, serious fighting erupted in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, when a peace agreement signed less than a year before broke down. Many citizens were killed, often in deliberate, ethnically motivated attacks, while others sought safety in the vicinity of the premises of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS). Many more…
Les dirigeants africains devraient déterminer comment relancer le dialogue sur le Burundi, a déclaré IRRI aujourd’hui, à l’occasion de la sortie de son dernier rapport sur le dialogue et les accords de paix dans le pays. Les conclusions du rapport montrent que malgré leur point de vue critique, de nombreux Burundais appuient la poursuite des…
