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U.N. head: drought-stricken Somalia needs help to avoid famine

U.N. Secretary general Antonio Guterres addresses a news conference after his meeting with Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed (L) in Somalia's capital Mogadishu March 7, 2017 REUTERS/Feisal Omar

By Katharine Houreld

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Rich countries must do more to stop drought-stricken Somalia from sinking into famine, the head of the United Nations said on Tuesday, warning terrorism would increase without aid.

“If you want to fight terrorism, we need to address the root causes of terrorism. We need to bring peace and stability to a country like Somalia … It’s the best way for rich countries to protect themselves,” U.N. chief Antonio Guterres told a news conference in Mogadishu.

The United Nations is asking for $825 million to provide aid to 6.2 million Somalis, about half the country’s population.

“I am not appealing for the generosity of the rich, I am appealing for the enlightened self-interest of the rich,” said Guterres.

His appeal comes a day after U.S. President Donald Trump signed a revised executive order suspending travel to the United States from six mainly Muslim nations, including Somalia. Trump, who has justified that measure on national security grounds, has also said he will slash budgets for U.S. aid and diplomacy.

Those policies will hit Somalia hard, after more than 25 years of civil war and an ongoing battle between its U.N.-backed government and an Islamist insurgency.

The current drought is threatening to turn into famine, with at least 360,000 Somali children severely malnourished, meaning they need extra food to survive.

“If we don’t have rain in the coming two months this could be a humanitarian crisis that could be the same as we had in 2011, when we lost 260,000 people,” said Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed.

Families from rural areas are moving to cities to search for food as animals die and water sources evaporate, forcing many to drink water infected with deadly cholera bacteria.

Asha Mohamed, 18, brought her two young daughters to the capital after the family’s sheep and goats died.

“When we got food, first we fed the children. We would only eat afterwards if there was enough,” she said.

Her neighbor, Medina Mohamed, said she must divide her food to ensure her smallest children and disabled son are fed first.

“The others don’t understand,” she said. “Everyone wants to eat.”

Low rainfall in neighboring Kenya has also left 1.3 million people in need of food aid there, while severe drought prompted water restrictions in South Africa at the end of last year and North Africa faced its worst drought in decades.

(Reporting by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Julia Glover)

U.N. says tide of refugees from South Sudan rising fast

An aerial photograph showing South Sudanese refugees at Bidi Bidi refugeeís resettlement camp near the border with South Sudan, in Yumbe district, northern Uganda December 7, 2016. REUTERS/James Akena/File Photo

By Elias Biryabarema

KAMPALA (Reuters) – Some 1.5 million refugees have fled fighting and famine in South Sudan to neighboring countries, half of them to Uganda, and thousands more are leaving daily, the U.N. refugee agency said on Thursday.

Political rivalry between South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar ignited a civil war in 2013 that has often followed ethnic lines.

The two signed a shaky peace deal in 2015, but fighting has continued and Machar fled in July after days of clashes between soldiers loyal to him and Kiir’s forces in the capital Juba. He is now in South Africa.

Charlie Yaxley, spokesman for the UNHCR in Uganda, said the agency estimated the total number of South Sudanese who have gone to neighboring countries at 1.5 million, half in Uganda.

In December there were an estimated 600,000 South Sudanese who had arrived in Uganda.

Yaxley said there were thousands of new arrivals every day. The UNHCR had planned for 300,000 this year.

“We have already in the first two months of this year received 120,00 new arrivals. If this rate of inflow continues actually that figure for 2017 will be far higher,” Yaxley said.

Refugees arriving in Uganda often say they are fleeing from ethnic violence.

“I was in Invepi … and almost every refugee I spoke to had either seen a friend or family member killed in front of their eyes,” Yaxley said, referring to the latest refugee settlement set up in Uganda.

Violence has prevented many farmers from harvesting crops and the scarcity of food has been compounded by hyperinflation, triggering famine in parts of South Sudan.

The UNHCR says the refugee crisis is the world’s third largest after Syria’s and Afghanistan’s.

(Editing by George Obulutsa and Andrew Roche)

Canada not convinced it will see surge in people crossing border

The former border crossing used by refugees as they walk from the United States to enter Canada at Emerson, Manitoba, Canada February 25, 2017. Picture taken Febraury 25. REUTERS/Lyle Stafford

By David Ljunggren

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada sees no signs of a coming surge in asylum seekers illegally crossing the border from the United States, a senior government official told reporters on Thursday, even as a steady stream of people continued to walk across the frontier.

Several hundred people, mainly from Africa, have defied winter conditions to enter Canada since Jan. 1. They are fleeing President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, migrants and refugee agencies say.

A briefing by Canadian officials was the first of its kind and comes as the Liberal government led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau comes under increasing domestic political pressure to deal with the influx.

Trudeau must also ensure the issue does not complicate his relations with Trump.

Security experts predict more will try to come as the snow melts and the weather warms.

But officials told the briefing it was too early to say whether a trend was developing and noted the number involved was still very small compared to the roughly 26,000 people who ask for asylum in Canada on average every year.

“There is no reason to believe that simply changes in weather patterns is going to lead to (an) increase,” said one official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

As dawn broke on Thursday, Reuters photographer Dario Ayala watched the Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrest a group of five – a man, two women and two children – after they scrambled across a ditch near the Quebec town of Hemmingford, on the border with New York state. The people said they came from Syria.

An RCMP officer standing on the Canadian side warned the group they would be detained if they crossed.

“Sorry, sorry, we have no choice,” said the man. Once in Canada, they were detained, and driven off for processing.

Later the same morning, at the same spot, Ayala saw police arrest seven people who said they were from Eritrea.

Reuters could not independently verify nationalities of people crossing the border on Thursday.

Government officials acknowledge an increase in people seeking asylum this year while insisting they have enough resources to cope.

Although no one has yet been charged by the police for illegally crossing the border, all those detained are checked to make sure they do not have convictions for serious crimes.

“We are not releasing anyone we have concerns about,” another official told the briefing.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Chris Reese)

Door knocks in the dark: The Canadian town on front line of Trump migrant crackdown

Refugees walk along railway tracks from the United States to enter Canada at Emerson, Manitoba, Canada, February 26, 2017. REUTERS/Lyle Stafford

By Rod Nickel

EMERSON, Manitoba (Reuters) – Jaime French was jarred out of bed in Emerson, Manitoba early one morning this month by pounding at her front door, just yards from the U.S. border. A face peered in through the window, flanked in the darkness by others.

Outside were 16 asylum seekers, arriving at one of the first houses they saw after crossing a lightly monitored border between Canada and the United States.

“They banged pretty hard, then ‘ring ring ring’ the doorbell,” said French, a mother of two young girls. “It was scary. That really woke me up.”

The town has become the front line of an emerging political crisis that is testing Canada’s will to welcome asylum seekers.

Hundreds of people, mainly from Africa but also the Middle East, are fleeing U.S. President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, migrants and refugee agencies say. Many asylum seekers say Trump’s election and subsequent crackdown on illegal migrants spurred their plans to head north.

Those arriving in Emerson come on foot in the dead of night, unnerving its 650 residents. Some fear the influx of unscreened migrants while others are frustrated by the cost and effort forced on the community.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is under increased pressure from the left, which wants him to let more in, and from the right, which is fearful of an increased security risk. Trudeau must tread carefully to ensure the issue does not complicate relations with Trump.

The cooling welcome in Emerson is a microcosm of growing discontent over Canada’s open door policy for refugees.

Last week, an Angus Reid poll found that while 47 percent of respondents said Canada is taking in the right number of refugees, 41 percent said the number is already too high. (See the report) (http://angusreid.org/syrian-refugee-travel-ban/)

“It could become a real political liability for the government,” said Christian Leuprecht, a politics professor at the Royal Military College of Canada, noting that spring will lead to more crossings as travel gets easier.

THAWING OUT IN THE KITCHEN

After the 16 migrants left French’s home, without being admitted, they found truck driver Brad Renout two doors down leaving for work.

“I was going to leave them all outside,” Renout said. “I figured, to hell with (them) for coming over the border in winter.”

When he saw children among the group, Renout allowed three women, three toddlers and two teenagers into his kitchen.

Early Sunday, Reuters witnessed at least seven migrants bundled in new parkas and bulging backpacks walking into Canada from Minnesota, following railway tracks in the icy dark.

Ismail, a 25-year-old Somali man, said they had walked for 22 hours without sleep across North Dakota. As police lights flashed distantly, Ismail said he was afraid to walk toward them.

He thought the group was still on U.S. soil.

Canadian police caught up with them shortly afterward and arrested them for illegally entering Canada. The group squeezed, uncuffed, into a police minivan and headed to a government office for questioning.

“We feel sorry for the people,” said retired grain farmer Ken Schwark. “I just wish they would come through the legal way.”

A 2004 agreement between Canada and the United States means asylum seekers must submit applications in the United States if they arrive there first. But if they find a way into Canada, they can apply for refugee status there.

It’s an avenue that has spurred north illegal migrants in the United States, especially Somalis settled in Minnesota, which shares a land border with Manitoba. After pricey taxi rides to North Dakota, many like Ismail walk for hours in darkness and -20 C (-4°F) temperatures to dimly lit Emerson, in the shadow of the bright glare of the international border crossing.

The lucky migrants get rides dropping them off less than a mile from Noyes, Minnesota, within sight of Emerson’s southern edge. From there they duck under a metal crossing-arm gate, walk across the border and often use their own cellphones to dial police.

Others are dropped 30 or more kilometers (19 miles) from the border, and follow rail lines into Emerson, crossing a border marked in most areas only by scattered concrete boundary markers.

Faye Suderman, a four-decade Emerson resident, said she is sympathetic but draws a line between those fleeing persecution and those who have simply run out of chances in the United States: “How difficult is it to get rid of those people and give help to those truly in need?”

Emerson Cafe manager Jacquelyn Reimer, who has fed shivering asylum seekers for free, wondered why the Canadian government is helping refugees when the country has its own homeless problem. “We can’t even take care of our own,” she said.

MAKESHIFT BEDS, NUTELLA SANDWICHES

Due to its border-hugging location, Emerson’s encounters with migrants are not new, but the scale of their arrivals is.

In the first two months of 2017, 143 mainly Somali people walked illegally over the border into Emerson, representing 40 percent of Manitoba’s full-year total in 2015/16. Quebec and British Columbia are the two other major illegal crossing points, but police there refused to provide data.

Emerson residents don’t encounter the migrants for long before police arrive and whisk them to the local Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) office for questioning. From there, they are ferried to Winnipeg, Manitoba’s capital, to file asylum claims.

Despite some residents’ fears, asylum-seekers have not caused any trouble, said Bill Spanjer, Emerson’s emergency coordinator.

“They’re going to be on their best behavior because otherwise their refugee claim is certainly going to be affected,” he said.

When police receive a call, they summon the town’s volunteer firefighters to treat any health concerns, as the nearest ambulance is 25 minutes away. In December, two men from Ghana lost all of their fingers to frostbite.

Firefighter callouts cost Emerson about C$500 each time. The costs may add up to C$30,000 since last spring, representing 10 percent of its firefighting budget, said Emerson-Franklin’s elected leader Greg Janzen. The provincial government directed more resources to Emerson last week, including paramedics and paralegal and transportation services.

Since the influx sped up in January, the strain on Emerson has grown. In early February, police intercepted 18 migrants from Somalia and Djibouti and CBSA asked Emerson to temporarily house them in the town’s ice rink.

Brenda Piett and other volunteers laid folding banquet tables on the concrete floor, and layered them with blankets for makeshift mattresses. At the migrants’ request, they served white bread sandwiches with Nutella hazelnut spread.

“The groups are getting bigger, and the stories are scary, how far they’ve walked,” said Piett, an inventory clerk at Emerson’s duty-free store. “But it does affect our town. Some people are very scared of it.”

(Additional reporting by David Ljunggren in Ottawa and Allison Lampert in Montreal; Editing by Amran Abocar and Ross Colvin)

Tens of thousands flood into Sudan from famine-hit South Sudan

A woman waits to be registered prior to a food distribution carried out by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Thonyor, Leer state, South Sudan.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – More than 31,000 South Sudanese refugees – mostly women and children – have crossed the border into Sudan this year, fleeing famine and conflict, the United Nations refugee agency said on Monday.

The United Nations declared famine last week in parts of South Sudan’s Unity State, with about 5.5 million people expected to have no reliable source of food by July.

“Initial expectations were that 60,000 refugees may arrive through 2017, but in the first two months alone, over 31,000 refugees arrived,” a statement from the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Khartoum said.

More than a million people have fled South Sudan since a civil war erupted in 2013 after President Salva Kiir’ fired Vice President Riek Machar. Fighting between government forces and Machar-led rebels has caused the largest mass exodus of any conflict in central Africa since the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Women and children wait to be registered prior to a food distribution carried out by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Thonyor, Leer state, South Sudan, February 26, 2017. REUTERS/Siegfried Modola

Some 328,339 South Sudanese refugees have sought refuge in Sudan, including about 131,000 in 2016, many exhausted, malnourished and ill, having walked for days. More than 80 percent of the latest arrivals were women and children.

The fighting has uprooted more than 3 million people and the U.N. says continuing displacement presented “heightened risks of prolonged (food) underproduction into 2018”. In the fighting, food warehouses have been looted and aid workers killed.

South Sudan is rich in oil resources. But, six years after independence from neighbouring Sudan, there are only 200 km (120 miles) of paved roads in a nation with an area of 619,745 square km (239,285 square miles).

(Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz; Writing by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Trudeau defends move to give U.S. agents more powers in Canada

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday defended plans to give more powers to U.S. border agents stationed in Canada, saying travelers would at all times be protected by domestic laws.

As part of a 2015 deal between Canada and the United States, Trudeau’s government has introduced draft legislation allowing U.S. border agents based in Canada more leeway to question and search people wishing to enter the United States.

Critics say this increases the chance of abuse at a time when the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump is cracking down on immigrants, prompting dozens of people to cross the border into Canada every week.

“Canadian laws are in place, so there is extra protection when Canadians go through American customs in Canada,” Trudeau told reporters.

U.S. border agents have been working in Canada since the 1950s, pre-clearing would-be visitors and addressing potential security threats. The agents are currently based at eight Canadian airports and under the 2015 deal, the program will be expanded to two more airports as well as Montreal train station.

Travelers who change their minds and decide not to enter the United States are currently allowed to leave. The new law permits U.S. agents to question and if need be strip search people seeking not to enter the United States.

Officials say the new tougher provisions are needed to deter militants probing for weaknesses at U.S.-operated border facilities.

Trudeau is under pressure in Parliament from the left-leaning opposition New Democrats, who say U.S. border guards are already racially profiling Canadians who wish to enter the United States.

“What will the government do to secure clear assurances for Canadians who wish to cross the border? When will the Prime Minister stand up for Canadians … will he stand up to the bully?” asked Jenny Kwan, the party’s spokeswoman for immigration, referring to Trump.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Alistair Bell)

Refugee claimants from U.S. strain Canada’s border resources

By Allison Lampert

HEMMINGFORD, Quebec (Reuters) – Canadian police said on Monday they had bolstered their presence at the Quebec border and that border authorities had created a temporary refugee center to process a growing number of asylum seekers crossing from the United States.

The Canada Border Services Agency, or CBSA, said at a news conference that it had converted an unused basement into a refugee claimant processing center. Both the border agency and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are reassigning staff from other locations in the province, as needed, to accommodate rising demand.

The CBSA said the number of people making refugee claims at Quebec-U.S. border crossings more than doubled from 2015 to 2016. Last month, 452 people made claims in Quebec compared with 137 in January 2016, the agency said.

The influx is straining police, federal government and community resources from the western prairie province of Manitoba, where people arrive frostbitten from hours walking in freezing conditions, to Quebec, where cabs drop asylum seekers off meters away from the Quebec-U.S.border, the border agency said.

Canadian Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen’s office did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.

A Reuters reporter on Monday saw RCMP officers take in for questioning a family of four – two men, a woman and a baby in a car seat – who had walked across the snowy gully dividing Roxham Road in Champlain, New York, from Chemin Roxham in Hemmingford, Quebec.

“Please explain to her that she’s in Canada,” one Canadian officer told another officer.

Police take people crossing the border in for questioning at the border agency’s office in Lacolle, Quebec, which is the province’s biggest and busiest border crossing. Police identify them and ensure they are not a threat or carrying contraband.

They are then transferred to the CBSA for fingerprinting and further questions. If people are deemed a threat or flight risk, they are detained. If not, they can file refugee claims and live in Canada while they wait for a decision

“It’s touching, and we are not insensitive to that,” Bryan Byrne, the RCMP’s Champlain Detachment commander, told reporters near the border. “Some of these people had a long journey. Some are not dressed for the climate here.”

Asylum seekers cross illegally because Canada’s policy under the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement is to turn back refugees if they make claims at border crossings. But as U.S. President Donald Trump cracks down on illegal immigrants, Amnesty International and refugee advocacy groups are pressuring the Canadian government to abandon the agreement, arguing the United States is no safe haven.

On Monday, Montreal, Canada’s second most populous city, voted to declare itself a “sanctuary city,” making it the fourth Canadian city to protect illegal immigrants and to provide services to them.

(Additional reporting and writing by Anna Mehler Paperny in Toronto; Editing by Diane Craft and Peter Cooney)

One in four Canadians support temporary refugee ban

A man who claimed to be from Sudan runs for the border after his family crossed the U.S.-Canada border into Hemmingford, Canada,

OTTAWA (Reuters) – One in four Canadians say Ottawa should have adopted a temporary halt on Syrian refugees in response to the United States’ controversial travel ban, though the majority supported the government’s current immigration plan, an Angus Reid Institute poll showed on Monday.

Sixty percent of those surveyed in an online poll said the Canadian government had done a good job of resettling Syrian refugees since the Liberals came to power in 2015.

The Syrian crisis became an issue during the election campaign after photos of a drowned Syrian toddler in Turkey whose family had wanted to emigrate to Canada made front page news. The Liberals made bringing in more Syrian refugees part of their platform.

The government plans to bring in 40,000 refugees from Syria and elsewhere this year. Forty-seven percent of those polled said Canada is taking in the right amount, though 41 percent said the number was too high. Just 11 percent said Canada should open its doors to more refugees.

“Public opinion in this country is onside with its government’s approach and response on domestic refugee policy, but is showing signs Ottawa may be testing the limits of how many migrants Canadians are willing to accept,” the report said.

After U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order last month suspending travel to the United States by citizens of seven mostly Muslim countries, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted that Canada welcomes those fleeing war and persecution.

Fifty-seven percent of people in the poll said the government had made the right decision in standing pat, but 25 percent said Canada should have put its own ban in place. Eighteen percent said Canada should have responded by taking in more refugees.

While Canada often prides itself as being a tolerant, ethnically diverse country, 54 percent doubted refugees would make what they considered enough effort to fit into Canadian society.

The survey of 1,508 Canadians was conducted earlier this month.

(Reporting by Leah Schnurr; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Eight people flee U.S. border patrol to seek asylum in Canada

Canadian police assist child from Sudan family fleeing to Canada

(This version of the Feb. 17 story corrects the headline and first paragraph to eight people from nine)

By Christinne Muschi

CHAMPLAIN, N.Y. (Reuters) – Eight asylum-seekers, including four children, barely made it across the Canadian border on Friday as a U.S. border patrol officer tried to stop them and a Reuters photographer captured the scene.

As a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officer seized their passports and questioned a man in the front passenger seat of a taxi that had pulled up to the border in Champlain, New York, four adults and four young children fled the cab and ran to Royal Canadian Mounted Police on the other side.

One by one they scrambled across the snowy gully separating the two countries. RCMP officers watching from the other side helped them up, lifting the younger children and asking a woman, who leaned on her fellow passenger as she walked, if she needed medical care.

The children looked back from where they had come as the U.S. officer held the first man, saying his papers needed to be verified.

The man turned to a pile of belongings and heaved pieces of luggage two at a time into the gully — enormous wheeled suitcases, plastic shopping bags, a black backpack.

“Nobody cares about us,” he told journalists. He said they were all from Sudan and had been living and working in Delaware for two years.

The RCMP declined on Friday to confirm the nationalities of the people. A Reuters photo showed that at least one of their passports was Sudanese.

The man then appeared to grab their passports from the U.S. officer before making a run for the border. The officer yelled and gave chase but stopped at the border marker. Canadian police took hold of the man’s arm as he crossed.

The border patrol officer told his counterpart that the man was in the United States illegally and that he would have detained him.

Officers on both sides momentarily eyed the luggage strewn in the snow before the U.S. officer took it, and a walker left on the road, to the border line.

The RCMP carried the articles to their vehicles, and the people piled in to be driven to a nearby border office to be interviewed by police and to make a refugee claim.

People seeking refugee status have been pouring over the Canada-U.S. border as the United States looks to tighten its policies on refugees and illegal immigrants. Asylum-seekers sneak across because even if they are caught, they can make a claim in Canada; if they make a claim at a border crossing, they are turned away.

(Writing by Anna Mehler Paperny; Editing by Toni Reinhold)

Multiple suicide bombing targets Nigerian refugees, Boko Haram blamed

people walk at the site of a bombing attack

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) – Seven suspected Boko Haram militants blew themselves on the outskirts of a northeast Nigerian city on Friday, a local aid agency said, in an attack witnesses said targeted refugees preparing to return to their home villages.

The bombing took place outside Maiduguri, the population center at the heart of a government campaign to eradicate the Islamist group, whose more than seven-year insurgency has killed 15,000 people and forced some two million from their homes.

The Borno State Emergency Management Agency said eight members of a local militia, the civilian Joint Task Force, were wounded in the attack, which underscored Boko Haram’s ability to continue to operate despite the government’s insistence it has crushed the group.

Witnesses told Reuters the attackers detonated their bombs

near a large refugee camp, outside which crowds of displaced people were gathering around trucks to form convoys before trying to return home.

In December, President Muhammadu Buhari said the capture of a key camp marked the “final crushing” of Boko Haram in its last enclave in Sambisa forest, once the group’s stronghold.

But since then the group, which split into two factions last year, has stepped up its attacks.

One Boko Haram faction is led by Abubakar Shekau from the Sambisa forest and the other, allied to jihadist group Islamic State, and led by Abu Musab al-Barnawi, based in the Lake Chad region.

(Reporting by Ahmed Kingimi, Adewale Kolawole and Ola Lanre in Maiduguri; Writing by Paul Carsten; editing by John Stonestreet)

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