QUOTE OF 2015: “It is terrifying that on the one hand there is more and more impunity for those starting conflicts, and on the other there is seeming utter inability of the international community to work together to stop wars and build and preserve peace,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres in June.
---------------
IMMIGRATION MINISTER EXPLAINS WHY
CANADA CANNOT ACCEPT SYRIAN ORPHANS....
Up to two million Syrian and Iraqi children have been orphaned by war as of
Christmas 2015, having lost one or both parents to air raids, massacres, or
from street fighting.
Children adrift
By Fram Dinshaw |
December 24th 2015
Syrian orphans
tell us their tragic stories
Syrian orphans
interviewed by Al Jazeera.
Up to two million
Syrian and Iraqi children have been orphaned by war as of Christmas 2015,
having lost one or both parents to air raids, massacres, or from street
fighting.
But war orphans
will not specifically be included in the 25,000 Syrian war refugees whom the
government aims to bring to Canada by Feb. 29 next year. Instead, Ottawa is
focusing primarily on resettling whole families – parents and children – as
well as vulnerable people such as LGBTQ Syrians.
“There are legal
and other issues with orphans, which makes it more complex. Undoubtedly, it’d
take more time – and time is one thing we don’t have very much of given our
targets, so we are not focusing on orphans,” Immigration Minister John McCallum
told National Observer on Dec. 23 in Ottawa.
Immigration
minister John McCallum provides an update on refugees on Dec. 23 in Ottawa.
(CP).
An Oct. 2007
parliamentary report warns that even identifying orphans and unaccompanied
minors in need of protection can be problematic. For example, if children are
forced to flee in haste from bombing raids or terror attacks, they may not
carry proper documentation or proof of age.
Any refugee
orphan wishing to enter Canada must provide both documentary evidence and
testimony to a Canadian immigration official. If a claimant cannot convince an
immigration officer that he or she is a minor, they will be treated like an
adult refugee.
Orphans and
otherwise parentless minors who make it to Canada and are interviewed by the
Immigration and Refugee Board must be accompanied by a designated
representative. This person can be a trusted friend or professional such as a
social worker or lawyer.
However, even
those minors who are granted refugee status in Canada cannot include parents or
other family members on their application, assuming that their parents are
still alive.
Once in Canada,
younger refugee children under 16 typically live with foster parents, while
older minors are sent to group homes, according to CBC.
“This situation
is very difficult for children, and can lead to psychological problems,
depression, or feelings of guilt. The exclusion of family members is justified
as a means to prevent families from using their children as an anchor to secure
their own resettlement. Parents of children accepted as refugees in Canada can
submit a humanitarian and compassionate application to try to be resettled with
their children,” states the report.
Six years later
in 2013 – by which time the war in Syria was in full swing – CBC News reported
that 300 unaccompanied minors were seeking refugee status in Canada every year.
While some may well have lost one or both parents, others were children sent
away by their parents in hopes that they would have a better life elsewhere.
Such was the case
with Iraqi citizen Ahmed Mohammed, whose parents paid $20,000 to ‘agents’ to
spirit him away to Canada just over two years ago, bypassing official refugee
channels.
Chapter 1
Canadian policy
Kindertransport:
A Journey to Life (2012) - Newsnight
BBC Newsnight
documentary on the Kindertransports to Britain.
Nonetheless,
there is an eighty-year old historical precedent for helping orphans and
unaccompanied refugees fleeing violence. In 1938-39, nearly 10,000 Jewish
children left Nazi Germany for the safety of Britain in ‘Kindertransports’.
The
Kindertransport story began in fall 1938 when Nazi storm troopers smashed and
looted Jewish-owned shops and houses, beating up and in a few cases killing
anyone who got in their way. The nationwide pogrom became known as
Kristallnacht – Night of Broken Glass. It prompted the British government to
ease its hitherto-strict refugee policies by allowing unaccompanied refugee
children under age 17 to enter the United Kingdom on Kindertransport trains.
However, the
children were only issued temporary visas and were supposed to leave Britain
once the German crisis was over. It was up to private citizens to sponsor
refugee children and guarantee payments for their care, education, and eventual
departure from Britain.
Parents were
barred from accompanying their children to Britain and in many cases were
unable to support their children at all as they had already been imprisoned in
concentration camps. Jewish associations organizing Kindertransports gave
priority to orphans and homeless children.
All told, nearly
10,000 refugee children – of whom 7,500 were Jews – reached the safety of
Britain by September 1939, when the outbreak of World War II prevented any
further passage of refugees out of Nazi Germany.
Not all refugee
children were orphans when they left Germany in the late 1930s. But by the time
World War II ended in 1945, nearly all of them were, as their parents were
among the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.
Nor did the
Kindertransport children return to their former homes in Germany, Austria, or
Czechoslovakia as planned. Instead, they either remained in Britain and took UK
citizenship, or emigrated to Israel and the United States after the war ended.
Like Syrians in
2015, most surviving European Jews had no homes or families to return to, as
Europe in 1945 had been devastated by both fighting and genocide, their homes
and possessions confiscated, or bombed.
Eight decades
later, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has identified
130,000 Syrian refugees in Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan who require permanent
refuge in other countries. This category includes orphans and those who have
been tortured by Syrian government or rebel forces.
Canada has so far
agreed to accept 25,000 Syrian refugees, a number that will likely rise to
between 35,000 – 50,000 refugees by the end of 2016, according to Immigration
Minister John McCallum.
“They’ve all come
under the UNHCR definition of vulnerable people so that’s a single crucial
criterion and within that, our group will be largely made up of families,” said
McCallum.
But the Canadian
government is not arranging any Kindertransport for Syrian children.
“The short answer
to that is no,” said McCallum.
But children –
whether orphans or not – continue to bear the brunt of warfare in conflict
zones around the world.
Chapter 2
What's at stake
Syrian Children -
Refugee Camp Niroz | UNICEF
Syrian children
at Niroz Refugee Camp share their experiences.
United Nations
figures show that 15 conflicts have erupted or re-ignited in the past five
years. These include the Middle East hotspots of Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, as
well as ongoing fighting in parts of Ukraine, Pakistan, Myanmar, and
Kyrgyzstan. Eight more wars are currently ongoing in the African nations of
Ivory Coast, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Libya,
Mali, northern Nigeria, South Sudan, and Burundi.
These wars had
produced a combined total of 59.5 million refugees as of June 2015. More than
half of them are children.
There is no exact
figure for how many children have been orphaned by conflict worldwide, but SOS
Children and the United Nations estimate that 153 million children have lost
either one or both parents from war, disease, or other causes.
“It is terrifying
that on the one hand there is more and more impunity for those starting
conflicts, and on the other there is seeming utter inability of the
international community to work together to stop wars and build and preserve
peace,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres in June.
A father cradles
his dead child in Syria. (AP).
As war spreads
across the world, so does trauma for those children caught up in it. The New
Yorker interviewed Nelson Kargbo, a boy from Sierra Leone, who was already an
orphan when his village was attacked. He witnessed his best friend’s shot to
death after resisting a rebel fighter who groped her breasts. Both Kargbo and
his friend were forcibly recruited as child soldiers.
He later fell
sick and was abandoned on a roadside by his rebel outfit. After making his way
to a refugee camp in neighbouring Guinea, Kargbo arrived in the United States
as a 15-year-old refugee with his surviving family.
But like many who
witness the reality of war – both soldiers and civilians – the trauma
continued.
“I just tried to
rehabilitate myself by doing what my friends were doing, smoking weed and
drinking,” Kargbo told the New Yorker.
Unable to escape
nightmares, voices in his head, or trouble with the law for a series of minor
offences, Kargbo was detained by immigration officials and faced deportation
back to Sierra Leone. He eventually won his appeal and was allowed to stay, but
by then he was diagnosed with psychosis.
“Children are
exposed to situations of terror and horror during war – experiences that may
leave enduring impacts in posttraumatic stress disorder. Severe losses and
disruptions in their lives lead to high rates of depression and anxiety in
war-affected children. These impacts may be prolonged by exposures to further
privations and violence in refugee situations,” states a Dec. 2006 Croat
Medical Journal report by Joanna Santa Barbara.
In addition, war
can force children to alter their entire morality, as the experience of
oppression or indifference to suffering destroys their emotional ‘place’ in the
world.
“They may have to
change their moral structure and lie, steal, and sell sex to survive. They may
have their moral structure forcibly dismantled and replaced in training to kill
as part of a military force,” states Santa Barbara’s report.
However, Canada
is stepping up to help traumatized children by reinstating federal healthcare
for refugees, a program that was eliminated by the former Conservative
government.
“These refugees
in most cases come from desperately awful, unimaginable circumstances. Some of
them will bear their scars of that, both in terms of physical health and mental
health and so that’s one of the reasons we at the federal level reinstated the
interim federal healthcare program for refugees,” McCallum told National
Observer.
Initially, the
restored benefits will be available to Syrians only, but McCallum indicated
that they would be expanded to other refugees soon.
But McCallum said
that refugee health care remained primarily a provincial responsibility, as it
did for all other Canadians.
“We are working
closely with our provincial counterparts,” McCallum said.
----------------
NO COUNTRY FOR YOUNG MEN- ONE
REFUGEE'S STORY OF GETTING TO CANADA...
Prelude to catastrophe
Kalashnikov-toting gunmen rampaged
through the dusty, bullet-scarred streets, looting, raping and killing anyone
who stood in their path, as Somalia ripped itself apart in a storm of
bloodshed.
The year was 1992, and eight-year
old Sharmarke Mohamed could only look on in horror as his country collapsed
around him.
Nineteen years before the horrors
of civil war engulfed Syria, Mohamed was too young to fully understand a
catastrophe that claimed the lives of neighbours and schoolmates seemingly
without rhyme or reason.
“I remember that everyone would
sleep with fear of not knowing what would happen tomorrow to you, your family,
and not having protection or anywhere where you could receive safe haven,” said
Mohamed.
Sharmarke Mohamed, as seen on his
Twitter profile photo.
What had actually happened was
that rebel forces had toppled Somalia’s hated military dictator Siad Barre in
1991, triggering a civil war that plunged the country into anarchy. Rival
warlords and their militias battled it out for control of the capital Mogadishu
and other cities. Law and order broke down completely and the police simply ran
away— leaving Somali civilians at the mercy of armed thugs who imposed their
own rules at gunpoint.
Somalia's capital Mogadishu, left
ruined by warfare in the 1990s. (Wikimedia).
Young Mohamed didn't understand
politics then. All he knew for sure was that he was terrified – and that he had
to escape Somalia if he wanted to stay alive.
Somalia’s crisis was a foretaste
of another looming catastrophe. Twenty years after Barre was driven out of
office, an even bloodier civil war destroyed Syria and drove half its
population from their homes.
As in Somalia, the war began when
Syria’s people revolted against the often-brutal dictatorship of Bashar
al-Assad. The demonstrations escalated into a bloodbath as the regime clamped
down, triggering a full-scale armed rebellion.
Just as his own country’s civil
war was a prelude to the Syrian cataclysm, Mohamed’s journey to freedom
prefigured that of millions of Syrians, including young men and boys just like
him.
Slow boats to Kenya
For Mohamed, the only way out of
Somalia was a dangerous boat trip down the East African coast to Kenya in a
rickety vessel. Many boats sank, drowning refugees in the Indian Ocean. The lucky
ones made it to Mombasa, a port city on the Kenyan coast.
“The Somali BBC radio was
announcing those boats that were lost,” recalled Mohamed.
But there was no image of a Somali
Alan Kurdi—or the ubiquity of Internet-based digital images—to galvanize public
opinion and help refugees like Mohamed.
Instead, Mohamed’s only reward was
a Kenyan refugee camp, where the boy would spend the next five years. He did
not disclose whether he made it out of Somalia with his family, or was forced
to flee by himself, one child among thousands.
“I don’t want to answer that
question,” Mohamed told National Observer in a reluctant tone.
His ordeal was such a whirlwind
that over two decades later, he isn’t sure whether the memories are all his own
or if he was recalling what surviving relatives told him about Somalia.
What is certain is that the war
forced him to abandon his education.
“I was a child. I wasn’t able to
go to school, so I missed all my schooling,” said Mohamed.
Chapter 1
Arab Spring, refugee winter
Scroll down to continue
Egypt: Battle for Tahrir Square
Footage showing riots and street
battles in Cairo during the 2011 revolution against former Egyptian president
Hosni Mubarak. (Credit: Daily News Egypt via YouTube).
The next stop for Mohamed – still
only a boy – was Ethiopia and later Egypt, where he settled for a time in the
capital Cairo.
Cairo is the Arab world’s beating
heart: streets lined with hulking apartment blocks and heaving with traffic,
filled with dust and the noise of blaring car horns; a cityscape of traditional
bazaars beneath swanky office towers and condos that wouldn't look out of place
in Toronto or Vancouver.
It was there that Mohamed finally
managed to complete his education, but as a refugee and foreign resident he had
to pay for it out of his own pocket.
“You are considered as a
foreigner,” recalled Mohamed.
Once he graduated university, he
fell into the same black hole that traps refugees all over Egypt: as
non-citizens, they are not legally allowed to work.
It was only thanks to the support
of relatives that Mohamed managed to survive in Cairo.
In 2011, Mohamed once again bore
witness to bloodshed on the streets of his adopted home. In January of that
year, massive street protests against the autocratic rule of President Hosni
Mubarak rocked Egypt, as Egyptians revolted against corruption, police
brutality, and high prices.
Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo
became the focal point for violent clashes between demonstrators and security
forces, leaving many injured or killed— but the whole city descended into a
chaos that for Mohamed was eerily reminiscent of his Somalian childhood.
The police melted away as local
vigilantes took their place, arming themselves with bats and other crude
weapons to defend their homes and shops against looters.
“The whole street system went
down,” recalled Mohamed. “I remember there was no police. Everyone was
protecting their own block. It reminded me all over again of Somalia.”
An Egyptian Army truck set ablaze
by protestors in 2011. (Wikimedia).
As Mubarak’s regime collapsed and
jubilant Egyptians took to the streets, the refugees in their midst were
abandoned and afraid. International aid organizations evacuated their staff,
said Mohamed, leaving no one to help people like him.
This was the Arab Spring, and
Egypt was only one of several countries— including Tunisia, Yemen, Algeria,
Jordan and Syria— facing citizen uprisings. In March 2011, a group of Syrian
teenagers spray-painted ‘The people want the fall of the regime’ on a wall in
the town of Daraa. Security forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad arrested
and tortured them. Protestors subsequently took to the streets, demanding their
release.
Within weeks, hundreds of
thousands of Syrians mounted nationwide anti-regime protests, triggering a
bloody crackdown by President Assad. This in turn sparked a full-scale civil
war that has now claimed roughly 300,000 lives to date and left his country,
heir to one of the world’s oldest civilizations, in ruins.
The war has also triggered the
worst refugee crisis since World War II, as more than four million Syrians have
fled the country and are fleeing in their thousands to Europe via Turkey. Some
trek overland, smuggling themselves across borders. Yet others clamber into
rickety boats and rafts, preferring the risk of drowning and an uncertain
future to their present reality—just as Mohamed and his fellow Somalians did 23
years ago.
But as the Middle East was going
up in flames, Mohamed's ship finally came in.
Chapter 2
Canadian Spring
In June 2012, Sharmarke Mohamed
stepped off a plane in Winnipeg, ready to begin his new life in Canada. The boy
who had fled Somalia in a boat two decades ago was now a grown man— albeit a
single one without a wife or children—the type of individual the Canadian
government is now singling out, as it resettles thousands of Syrian refugees,
pushing unattached men to the back of the line.
Mohamed's lucky break came when he
received family and community sponsorship in Canada. This allowed him to apply
as a refugee, an application accepted by Canadian officials in Egypt.
For Mohamed, coming to Canada was
“the biggest success” in his troubled life. For the first time, he felt truly
free and safe.
“I was like, oh my God, life is
starting now.”
But Winnipeg, a frigid prairie
city a world away from Cairo’s heat and noise, did not keep Mohamed for long.
Instead, he kept moving west to
Victoria, where he landed a job at the Victoria Immigrant and Refugee Centre
Society as a settlement worker, where he helps newcomers to Canada adjust to
their new home.
His job focuses on helping
immigrant and refugee youths to integrate into Canadian society. He assists new
arrivals in navigating the school system, accessing needed services, and
bringing teens together to share their experiences in supervised workshops.
When not helping his fellow
immigrants – a job that he finds highly rewarding – Mohamed is a refugee
advocate in Victoria, raising awareness of their plight with the general
public. He also serves as an executive member at the Canadian Council of
Refugees.
“I always say I got an arranged
marriage to Victoria – because I got the job here. Who says arranged marriages
can’t work?” joked Mohamed.
Mohamed's biography now reads as
part of the canon of Canadian immigrant success stories—the young person who
overcomes tremendous adversity to build a new life in a new home. He has
whole-heartedly embraced Canada’s secular democratic values. His life is a
rebuttal to those who claim that Muslim refugees will seek to impose Sharia
religious law on Canadians.
In fact, Mohamed repeatedly
professes his faith in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the civil
rights legislation drawn up when Justin Trudeau’s father was still prime
minister.
Unlike his life in Cairo—where he
was banned from working and unable to integrate into, nor contribute to,
Egyptian society in any meaningful way—the Charter allows Mohamed to live and
work wherever he chooses and think freely, without fearing either government
oppression or mob violence.
“I’m very happy, because the last
three years I’ve worked so hard and I’m really committed to the Charter of
Rights and Freedoms and finally I feel that I’m at home. I’m so happy that I
have a job, I pay my taxes,” said Mohamed.
Chapter 3
Who makes an ideal refugee?
Syrian refugees hope to be
selected by Canada
Syrian refugees hope to be
selected by Canada. (Source: CBC).
Three years after Mohamed stepped
off a plane in Winnipeg, the Canadian government is preparing to welcome 25,000
Syrian war refugees to a new life in Canada.
The refugee issue has become a
political minefield for Justin Trudeau’s government after Islamic State
terrorists massacred 129 people in Paris on Nov. 13, bringing public fears over
border security and refugees to the forefront.
On Nov. 24, Liberal ministers
announced that the government will miss its original Dec. 31 deadline for
bringing all 25,000 Syrians to Canada, extending the timeline into 2016.
Trudeau's team is walking a
political tightrope between compassion and national security. Its solution,
announced on Nov. 24, is to prioritize whole families, members of Syria’s
much-persecuted LGBTQ community, and women deemed vulnerable to rape or sexual
exploitation for government refugee sponsorship.
This means that young single men
like Mohamed are being shunted to the back of the queue.
While Mohamed welcomed Trudeau’s
overall refugee plan, he was dismayed at Canada's approach to single men like
himself.
“I was a single Muslim man. Just
to think that I would be rejected is heartbreaking, knowing how committed I am
to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and how much I’m committed to my
community [in Victoria],” said Mohamed.
Contrary to some media reports,
single unattached men who do not identify as LGBTQ are not being shut out
completely, but rather restricted to private sponsorship only. Of the 25,000
people the government plans to admit, 10,000 private sponsorship slots will be
available. Private individuals or groups seeking to sponsor Syrians are free to
choose whomever they like.
Nonetheless, the New Democrat
Party wasted no time in criticizing the Liberal approach to single Syrian males
seeking asylum.
“After promising to accept
refugees based on need, Liberals are continuing the practice of picking and
choosing refugees,” said NDP Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship critic Jenny
Kwan on Nov. 24.
Chapter 4
Lone men
Who is fighting whom in Syria? BBC
News
Who is fighting whom in Syria?
(BBC News via YouTube).
Single Syrian men are arguably as
at-risk as any other group. Any men of fighting age residing in government-held
territory are liable to be forcibly conscripted into President al-Assad’s army
and serve a regime that has presided over hundreds of thousands of deaths since
the civil war erupted in 2011.
The situation is no better for men
living in rebel-held areas of Syria, as they too face possible conscription
into extremist jihadi groups such as Islamic State or Jabhat al-Nusra, which is
affiliated with terrorist group al-Qaeda.
“I’m a peaceful man and I don’t
want to fight," a refugee called Nizam told the UK Guardian after he fled
his own country. "The government is against us – and ISIS and Jabhat
al-Nusra [two of the main jihadi groups] want to kill us.”
Map of the Syrian Civil War as of
Nov. 25 2015. (Wikimedia).
For those Syrians unwilling to
fight and unable to legally claim asylum in the West, their only other choice
is fleeing to crowded refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon, or heading north
into Turkey.
For many, these countries are
merely a stepping stone. Every week, thousands make the same choice that
Sharmarke Mohamed made 23 years ago: clambering into an overcrowded boat or
dinghy and sailing across the Mediterranean Sea to Greece.
Those who make it to dry land,
either on Greece's mainland or its islands, are only at the beginning of their
trials. They may be lucky enough to receive hot food or medical care at an aid
station, but then they are faced with a hazardous overland trek through
Macedonia, Serbia, and Hungary towards Western Europe.
However, European nations
overwhelmed by a tide of desperate people are steadily closing their borders.
Hungary has already thrown up a 108-mile fence on its frontier with Serbia,
while Germany and Austria have reinstated border controls. Poland is refusing
to take any new arrivals since the Paris attacks.
Chapter 5
Canadian dream or security
nightmare?
Most of the current flood of
refugees – hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children – that have
entered Europe have done so illegally and have not been subjected security
screening.
This has caused nightmares in
European capitals from London to Budapest, as governments fear that terrorists
could pose as refugees to infiltrate Europe and potentially cause chaos.
After the Nov. 13 Paris attacks,
the public mood turned hysterical when a Syrian passport was found near the
corpse of a slain Islamic State terrorist.
Of the eight terrorists who
attacked Paris, seven have been positively identified as citizens of either
France or Belgium and were not refugees, according to a Nov. 19 International
Business Times report. The eighth attacker who carried the Syrian passport has
not yet been identified.
However, even if terrorists did
pose as refugees, Canada would be a much harder target to reach than mainland
Europe. The country is protected by two huge oceans and a polar icecap that no
leaky refugee boat could ever cross. The only land route is via the U.S.A,
which enforces tough visa and security screening rules at border checkpoints.
This leaves air travel as the only
way to reach Canada, and all 25,000 Syrians arriving here will be thoroughly
screened.
After refugees are identified by
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), they must undergo an
iris scan at a UN office to verify their identity. Next, Canadian officials
will collect biometric and biographical information from refugee candidates as
well as digital photos. Their personal information will be checked against
security, law enforcement, and immigration databases to weed out lawbreakers,
before any refugee receives a permanent resident visa.
Lastly, Canadian Border Services
Agency officers will confirm the identities of each individual refugee before
they board their planes to Canada. Upon arrival at the Toronto or Montreal
airports, CBSA officials will again verify refugees’ identities one final time
before they are allowed onto Canadian soil.
"We are ready to welcome
those people who have suffered so much," said Minister of Health Jane
Philpott, who also chairs the government's Ad Hoc Committee on Refugees.
Three years earlier, Sharmarke
Mohamed also had to undergo security screening. This meant submitting his
fingerprints to both the Egyptian and Canadian authorities.
He had a full interview with
Canadian visa officers in Cairo and also had to apply for permission from the
Egyptian government to leave.
Chapter 6
Plane scared – or plane sense?
Immediately after the Paris
attacks, the CBSA stepped up screening of foreign travellers landing at
Canadian airports, pulling aside passengers as soon as they stepped off the
plane to ask why they were visiting Canada.
National Observer spoke with two
travellers at Ottawa Airport on Nov. 19 who had just arrived on a flight from
London-Heathrow. Both confirmed that CBSA agents were questioning foreign
nationals at the airplane door.
However, the policy appeared to
cover all non-Canadians, not just those from the Middle East. British tourist
Rebecca Jobson said that agents asked her why she was visiting Canada and if
she had been to Africa within the past 21 days.
Neither Jobson nor Ted Blake, a
Canadian citizen who was also on the flight from London, were especially
bothered by what they had seen.
“They were doing what they should
be doing,” said Blake of the CBSA. He was waved straight through by officers.
But the plane-side screening
appeared to be temporary. A few days later on Nov. 23, Torontonian Anjeer Khan
landed at Pearson after a trip abroad and said that no border guards were
present at the airplane door after his flight landed.
A senior CBSA official who cannot
be named informed National Observer that the agency regularly monitored
disembarkation at aircraft, saying it was a normal process unrelated to the
global refugee crisis.
CBSA spokesperson Line
Guibert-Wolff also had little to say when asked about extra screening of
international travellers at airports.
“The Canada Border Services Agency
(CBSA) exercises vigilance every day and works closely with its security
partners, both in Canada and internationally, to ensure the safety and security
of Canada and Canadians. CBSA operational requirements may require that
traveller documents be reviewed,” Guibert-Wolff said.
While the CBSA remains
tight-lipped over airport screening procedures, the opposition Conservatives
have voiced fears over Canada’s ability to cope with thousands of new arrivals.
Conservative immigration critic
Michelle Rempel said that CBSA officers “hadn’t been briefed at all,” on the
government’s screening plans. For her this was worrying as they all had
questions about training and their ability to properly screen a huge number of
refugees at airports.
“What we're concerned about in our
role is to ensure that the safety of Canadians is put first and foremost, in
any plan to enable refugees to be welcomed to Canada,” Rempel told National
Observer.
However the CBSA – together with
the RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service – was promised $100 million
in extra funding under the previous Conservative government back in May.
Then-finance minister Joe Oliver said that it would help protect Canada from
terrorists.
Border guards are already under
strain as they prepare for the possible return home of Canadian extremists
fighting for the Islamic State and other jihadi groups, according to the
National Post. An estimated 130 Canadians are fighting with extremist groups
abroad and another 80 or so have already returned.
Back to National Observer
Intro
Chapter 1Arab Spring, refugee winter
Chapter 2Canadian Spring
Chapter 3Who makes an ideal refugee?
Chapter 4Lone men
Chapter 5Canadian dream or security nightmare?
Chapter 6Plane scared – or plane sense?
Other stories
This is what a climate refugee looks like
--------------
AND SOME OF THE GOOD STUFF.... FROM NOVA SCOTIA, CANADA... this is so heartwarming from an old Immigraton worker from long ago....
In case you missed it....highlights and happenings from the South Shore Breaker.
A new year and a new home
South Sudanese family arrives in Barrington
KATHY JOHNSON
It's a new year and new life for a family of 10 from South Sudan who have been living in the Dadaab Refugee Camp in eastern Kenya for the past 12 years.
It was almost midnight on Dec. 7 when Johnson Majok Akay, his wife Angelina, mother-in-law Rebecca and seven children; Monica, Priscilla, Michael, Susan, Lillian, Faith and Samson arrived at the house in Barrington that had been lovingly prepared for them by the Barrington Area Refugee Sponsorship Group.
After 75 hours of travel including an all-day bus ride and four flights, they were exhausted to say the least.
‟Everything is new and different for them," said group member John Shaar a few days after they arrived. ‟The easiest way to describe the situation for them after a couple days is bewilderment.
They are happy to be here and ready to start their new life, but everything is new for them, and I mean everything. It's going to be a big learning curve." Shaar said sponsorship group members have ‟been awesome with their time and support," and ‟the community hospitality and generosity continues to be amazing. Before and since the Sudanese family arrived here, the offers of help and gifts haven't stopped." The family has wasted no time in putting down new roots. The children started school at Forest Ridge Academy and Barrington Municipal High School on Dec. 14 and were anxious for classes to resume after the Christmas Break. Shaar's wife Sandra said while the family knows that here in rural Nova Scotia there isn't as many job opportunities, postsecondary training and other amenities as in a city, ‟the dad said he feels we care about them as much as his Sudanese family does, he knows his children are safe and he is happy with the schools they will be attending. He knows they now all have a future." The family has landed immigrant status.
The Barrington Area Refugee Sponsorship group was formed last summer, and is just one of many groups along the South Shore who are in various stages of sponsoring refugee families.
‟There's (an estimated) 13 groups and each group is sponsoring at least one family," said John Mac-Donald, chairman of two Bridgewater area groups, and President of Bridgewater Inter-church Council.
MacDonald, who is spokesperson for the Lunenburg County groups, said he's ‟been inspired by the expressions of good will" to the cause. ‟There are so many people who want to help and we want to give them the opportunity to do so," he said. ‟Just at my church (St. Joseph), we raised $20,000 at one special offering and we're not that big a parish," he said, adding they are now looking at sponsoring another family.
MacDonald said he didn't know when the family of four being sponsored by St. Josephs would be arriving. Syrian refugees, the family includes young parents and two daughters ages six and eight.
While the various sponsorship groups along the south shore are all at various stages of fundraising, they will all welcome any support they can get, said Mac-Donald. ‟I know a lot of people want to help," he said. ‟The bottom line is we want to make this a welcoming community so even if your contribution is a smile, let's all be as welcoming in any way we can." MacDonald has compiled a list of refugee sponsorship groups on the south shore ‟for any who may wish to make a financial contribution."Bridgewater & Area Syrian Refugee Sponsorship Committee (Cheques made out to BASRSC), Box 257, 450 Lahave St. Bridgewater, N.S. B4V4A3St. Joseph's Syrian Refugee Sponsorship Committee (Cheques made out to St. Joseph's Church, Refugee Fund on ‟memo" line) 123 Pleasant St. Bridgewater, N.S.
B4V1N3Mahone Bay Area Refugee Sponsorship Group (Cheques made out to St. James' Parish, Mahone Bay, Refugee Sponsorship on memo line), P.O. Box 25 Mahone Bay, N.S. B0J 2E0Lunenburg & Area Refugee Committee (LARC) (Cheques made out to St. John's Anglican Church OR Rotary Club of Lunenburg, memo line: FOR LARC), St.
John's Anglican Church, 64 Townsend Street., P.O. Box 238, Lunenburg, NS B0J 2C0 Donations also accepted online at: www.larcsyria.weebly.comLunenburg Friends 1 and Lunenburg Friends 2 (Cheques made out to Lunenburg Friends), c/o Fern Jordan, 155 Second Peninsula Road, RR 3, Lunenburg, NS B0J 2C0St. Norbert's Syrian Refugee Sponsorship Committee (Cheques made out to St. Joseph's Church, St. Norbert's Refugee Fund on memo line), 123 Pleasant St., Bridgewater, N.S., B4V1N3LaHave Area Refugee Support Group (Cheque made out to Wesley United Church, refugee support on the memo line), Wesley United Church, 22 Drews' Hill Rd., Petite Rivire, NS. B4V 5Z8Two Rivers Refugee Group, c/o Doug Quinn, 184 Pentz Rd., RR#1 Pleasantville, N.S. B0R1G0Yarmouth Refugee Support Group http://herald.ca/YYM
A new year and a new home
South Sudanese family arrives in Barrington
KATHY JOHNSON
It's a new year and new life for a family of 10 from South Sudan who have been living in the Dadaab Refugee Camp in eastern Kenya for the past 12 years.
It was almost midnight on Dec. 7 when Johnson Majok Akay, his wife Angelina, mother-in-law Rebecca and seven children; Monica, Priscilla, Michael, Susan, Lillian, Faith and Samson arrived at the house in Barrington that had been lovingly prepared for them by the Barrington Area Refugee Sponsorship Group.
After 75 hours of travel including an all-day bus ride and four flights, they were exhausted to say the least.
‟Everything is new and different for them," said group member John Shaar a few days after they arrived. ‟The easiest way to describe the situation for them after a couple days is bewilderment.
They are happy to be here and ready to start their new life, but everything is new for them, and I mean everything. It's going to be a big learning curve." Shaar said sponsorship group members have ‟been awesome with their time and support," and ‟the community hospitality and generosity continues to be amazing. Before and since the Sudanese family arrived here, the offers of help and gifts haven't stopped." The family has wasted no time in putting down new roots. The children started school at Forest Ridge Academy and Barrington Municipal High School on Dec. 14 and were anxious for classes to resume after the Christmas Break. Shaar's wife Sandra said while the family knows that here in rural Nova Scotia there isn't as many job opportunities, postsecondary training and other amenities as in a city, ‟the dad said he feels we care about them as much as his Sudanese family does, he knows his children are safe and he is happy with the schools they will be attending. He knows they now all have a future." The family has landed immigrant status.
The Barrington Area Refugee Sponsorship group was formed last summer, and is just one of many groups along the South Shore who are in various stages of sponsoring refugee families.
‟There's (an estimated) 13 groups and each group is sponsoring at least one family," said John Mac-Donald, chairman of two Bridgewater area groups, and President of Bridgewater Inter-church Council.
MacDonald, who is spokesperson for the Lunenburg County groups, said he's ‟been inspired by the expressions of good will" to the cause. ‟There are so many people who want to help and we want to give them the opportunity to do so," he said. ‟Just at my church (St. Joseph), we raised $20,000 at one special offering and we're not that big a parish," he said, adding they are now looking at sponsoring another family.
MacDonald said he didn't know when the family of four being sponsored by St. Josephs would be arriving. Syrian refugees, the family includes young parents and two daughters ages six and eight.
While the various sponsorship groups along the south shore are all at various stages of fundraising, they will all welcome any support they can get, said Mac-Donald. ‟I know a lot of people want to help," he said. ‟The bottom line is we want to make this a welcoming community so even if your contribution is a smile, let's all be as welcoming in any way we can." MacDonald has compiled a list of refugee sponsorship groups on the south shore ‟for any who may wish to make a financial contribution."Bridgewater & Area Syrian Refugee Sponsorship Committee (Cheques made out to BASRSC), Box 257, 450 Lahave St. Bridgewater, N.S. B4V4A3St. Joseph's Syrian Refugee Sponsorship Committee (Cheques made out to St. Joseph's Church, Refugee Fund on ‟memo" line) 123 Pleasant St. Bridgewater, N.S.
B4V1N3Mahone Bay Area Refugee Sponsorship Group (Cheques made out to St. James' Parish, Mahone Bay, Refugee Sponsorship on memo line), P.O. Box 25 Mahone Bay, N.S. B0J 2E0Lunenburg & Area Refugee Committee (LARC) (Cheques made out to St. John's Anglican Church OR Rotary Club of Lunenburg, memo line: FOR LARC), St.
John's Anglican Church, 64 Townsend Street., P.O. Box 238, Lunenburg, NS B0J 2C0 Donations also accepted online at: www.larcsyria.weebly.comLunenburg Friends 1 and Lunenburg Friends 2 (Cheques made out to Lunenburg Friends), c/o Fern Jordan, 155 Second Peninsula Road, RR 3, Lunenburg, NS B0J 2C0St. Norbert's Syrian Refugee Sponsorship Committee (Cheques made out to St. Joseph's Church, St. Norbert's Refugee Fund on memo line), 123 Pleasant St., Bridgewater, N.S., B4V1N3LaHave Area Refugee Support Group (Cheque made out to Wesley United Church, refugee support on the memo line), Wesley United Church, 22 Drews' Hill Rd., Petite Rivire, NS. B4V 5Z8Two Rivers Refugee Group, c/o Doug Quinn, 184 Pentz Rd., RR#1 Pleasantville, N.S. B0R1G0Yarmouth Refugee Support Group http://herald.ca/YYM
Johnson Majok Akay, left, is all smiles after arriving at his new home in Barrington on Dec. 7, as is John Shaar, one of the many driving forces in the Barrington and Area Refugee Sponsorship Group. KATHY JOHNSON
Angelina Akay, left. with Barrington and Area Refugee Sponsorship Group volunteer Sandra Shaar after arriving at her new home in Barrington on Dec. 7. The family of 10 includes seven children ages 17 to nine months. KATHY JOHNSON
Barrington and Area Refugee Sponsorship Group volunteer Harry MacDonald carries in a piece of luggage for the Sundanese family now loving in Barrington. KATHY JOHNSON
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What
happens to orphan refugees in America?
Philadelphia refugee organization
explains how U.S. takes in unaccompanied minors
By
Sharon
Lurye
PhillyVoice Staff
PhillyVoice Staff
When asked in a recent interview whether he’d accepted
Syrian orphans under the age of five to come to the United States as refugees,
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said no.
“They have no family here. How are we going to care
for these folks?” asked Christie, according to the Daily Caller.
Janet Panning is in a position to answer that
question. She’s the program director at Philadelphia’s Lutheran Children and
Family Service, which runs a refugee
resettlement program in cooperation with the U.S. Department of State.
Her organization serves refugees of all nations and
ethnicities, connecting them to jobs, housing and government assistance. It is
also part of a larger network, the National Lutheran Immigration and Refugee
Service, that helps unaccompanied refugee children find foster families.
“We’re always out there looking for people who are
willing to be foster parents. … We always have people in the works,” she said.
NOT 'THE PEOPLE WE SEE ON TV'
First, Panning wanted to clear up a common
misconception about refugees: they’re not the people you’ve seen on TV, getting
shuttled from country to country in Europe. Refugees don’t get to step one foot
inside the U.S. until they’ve gone through a multiyear screening process.
“What people perhaps don’t understand is that the
people we see on TV that are fleeing into Europe are not the ones in line for a
refugee interview,” Panning said. “The people who are getting refugee
interviews are ones who fled during the Arab Spring to Lebanon or Jordan. That
was in 2011 or 2012. So they’ve been sitting there in the refugee camps,
undergoing levels of scrutiny (people) don’t even envision.”
Refugees who escape to another country register with
the United Nations. Out of around four million Syrian refugees worldwide,
the U.N. has so far submitted 22,427 of them to the U.S. for consideration. The
United States, in turn, has accepted 2,174 Syrian refugees since 2012, the
Guardian reported.
In comparison, the U.N. says there are
around 1.8 million refugees in Turkey, 1.2 million in Lebanon and 600,000 in
Jordan.
As PhillyVoice published before, refugee applicants go through a long vetting
process, which includes an interview with the Department of Homeland Security,
fingerprint checks and medical exams.
“Any inconsistencies in the stories are checked. If
there’s any flag at all, people don’t travel,” Panning explained.
Once people are cleared for travel, they are matched
with agencies like Lutheran Children and Family Service. So far, the
organization has helped eight Syrian families, consisting of 39 people,
resettle in the Lehigh Valley.
FINDING FOSTER FAMILIES
Both the Lutherans and the Catholics have national
agencies with networks that provide foster care for unaccompanied minors. Once
a child is identified, said Panning, “We scour our offices nationally to see
who has a placement.”
The child does not come to the U.S. unless there is a
family waiting for them already. Because of the chaos of war, however, these
minors cannot be adopted.
“These children can never be adopted because it’s
always possible their relatives or parents can turn up,” Panning said. In
Pennsylvania, children can stay in foster care until age 18, or up to age 21 if they are in school or
employed.
When a family comes to America, Lutheran Service
picks them up from the airport and helps them find an apartment, make health
appointments, find jobs and enroll their children in school.
The government gives Lutheran Services $1,125 per
person for the first two months. Welfare benefits after that can include cash
assistance, medical assistance and food stamps, but the exact amount depends on
the composition of the family and how soon the adults can find a job. Panning
says that 80 percent of the families are employed within the first six months.
Despite the debate over accepting Syrian refugees,
Lutheran Services has received “an outpouring of support from multiple groups,”
noted Panning, and not just fellow Lutherans. She even got an email from one
person who wrote: “I’m an atheist; I just want to help.”
There are many ways to
help: donating to the organization, co-sponsoring a family, volunteering as
a tutor or packing a refugee welcome box. You can even become a foster parent,
and become the family of a child who doesn't have one anymore.
----------------
WHY AREN'T THESE RIH
----------------------
'Orphan' refugees locked up in cells
15 October 2015 at 10:40am
By: Independent
The United Nations refugee agency has been
forced to step in to save scores of “orphan” children from detention in filthy
police cells on the Greek island of Kos after its complaints at the squalid
conditions went unheeded.
Children as young as 11 who arrived by boat
from Turkey without their parents or other adult relatives have been held for
weeks at a time in cells smeared in faeces, alongside adult criminals, while
Greek authorities determined where to relocate them.
Greek officials say they are obliged to
keep the children securely for their own safety as legal minors.
But volunteers from a non-governmental
organisation that visits prisoners at Kos's central police station every day
said they were shocked by the “medieval” conditions there.
They are provided with only one meal a day,
in addition to fresh fruit and water that is supplied by charities and aid
agencies, and on at least one occasion children in police detention went for
two days without food.
They are not allowed to go outside and are
handcuffed if they are moved to a different location, several witnesses said.
“It's really filthy,” one volunteer, who
asked not to be named, told The Independent.
“There are bare electrical wires sticking
out of the ceiling … There is shit on the floor and it is running out of the
cell. They have to reach out through bars to receive their food. This is not
normal in Europe.”
The United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) has been warning the Greek government and local authorities
about the poor conditions since it developed a presence on the island in May.
Hard-pressed Greek officials have been
battling to cope with the influx of tens of thousands of refugees and migrants
arriving by boat from Turkey, often at the rate of more than 1 000 a week.
Now the UN body has intervened, and has
reached an agreement with Kos's public prosecutor that such children will in
future be placed in the care of an NGO, which will run its own shelter for them
with UN funding.
“Clearly [custody] remains a state
responsibility. However, given the fact that is not happening at the speed
needed for the numbers of refugees arriving in Greece, the UN has been happy to
step in and help,” said Marco Procaccini, director of the UNHCR office on the
island.
At present a total of 11 children aged
between 12 and 17 are being held in two Kos police stations, The Independent
has been told.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the
Child states that children are entitled to special protection and help if they
are refugees and should not be placed in prison with adults.
While EU agreements lay out guidelines for
the protection of unaccompanied minors, each country has its own specific
legislation.
According to Greek law, those claiming
asylum who cannot be matched up with relatives are automatically placed in the
custody of the public prosecutor until they can be put under the supervision of
a suitable legal guardian.
In practice, this means they are handed
over to the police while they wait to be placed at a long-term care facility
elsewhere in Greece.
This can take anything between a few days
and several weeks, Mr Procaccini said.
Tim Ubhi, the clinical director of the
British organisation Children's E-Hospital, who visited the police cell three
times during a recent visit to help refugees on the island, said the conditions
were very poor.
“It's a horrible cell,” he said.
“It's like a medieval dungeon - there's no
other way to describe it.”
Mr Ubhi said that the conditions in which
the children are held may have a devastating impact on them.
“From a physical and a psychological point
of view, as well as emotionally, this is quite disturbing,” he said.
Since May the UNHCR has encouraged police
to transfer some teenagers from Kos town police station to another, 12 miles
outside, where they are incarcerated in a single room but are at least separate
from other prisoners.
They remain locked in for most of the day.
“They don't let them out because they are
under 18,” said Sevastianos Marangos, head of Kos's Civil Protection Office.
“We keep them there for their own safety.”
But others are still being held in the
central police cell.
On Wednesday there were seven there,
alongside more than a dozen adults.
“They are not looking good,” said a
volunteer who had visited the cell several days in a row.
“You can see it in their eyes.”
Mr Marangos said Kos had been unprepared
for the volume of refugees who began arriving in the spring.
He said the island, which has a population
of 30 947, has not received enough funding or additional staff to meet the
refugees' needs.
More than 42 000 have arrived on the island
this year, with 337 in a single day last weekend.
“This problem was faced for the first time
in Kos,” Mr Marangos said.
“We have tried the best we could to keep
the island clean and safe.”
Stella Nanou, public information officer
for UNHCR in Greece, said the practice of detaining children in police custody
while they await transfer to longer-term care was being repeated in other parts
of the country.
The UNHCR has repeatedly warned the
government about its capacity to accommodate unaccompanied minors seeking
asylum, most recently in April this year.
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