Burkina Faso junta chief Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, visiting Ivory Coast on a key foreign trip, on Monday stood by a pledge to restore civilian rule within two years.
“Be assured that the commitments made by Burkina Faso to the international community will be honoured,” Damiba told the press during a brief visit to the country’s neighbour.
Under the promised 24-month transition, the junta “will organise elections for the return to normal constitutional order,” he said.
Damiba’s trip to Ivory Coast comes on the heels of a visit to Mali on Saturday — his first official foray abroad since January’s military takeover.
The three countries are worried by jihadists whose bloody campaign in the Sahel has swept across three countries and now threatens to strike south to the Gulf of Guinea.
Starting in northern Mali in 2012, the insurgents attacked neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger in 2015, launching an offensive that has killed thousands and forced some two million people from their homes.
In recent years, the insurgents have mounted sporadic raids on northern Ivory Coast, which shares a nearly 600-kilometre (370-mile) border with Burkina.
Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara vowed his country’s “total support” for the junta’s “efforts” against the jihadists.
“Terrorist attacks are a concern for the entire sub-region,” he said.
“We should do everything to support each other, to continue to exchange information and have cooperation among security forces.”
On Sunday, Damiba in a nationwide address, said Burkina’s armed forces had “intensified offensive actions” against the jihadists and acquired new equipment.
A “relative calm” had returned to parts of the east, north and centre-north, which have borne the brunt of the attacks, he said.
Asked in Abidjan whether he was playing a role in efforts to resolve a spat between Mali and Ivory Coast, Damiba said he hoped “a solution can be found” between the two countries themselves.
Forty-nine Ivorian troops were arrested on July 10 after they arrived at the airport at Bamako, the Malian capital.
They were then placed in custody and charged with attempting to harm state security. Ivory Coast is demanding their release, saying they were simply sent to Mali to provide backup duties for the UN peacekeeping mission.
Three women who were among the 49 were released, officials from Mali, Ivory Coast and Togo, which has been acting as mediator, said on Saturday.
Ivory Coast is a key member of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which is struggling with a string of military coups in the region in the past two years.
The Malian junta has accused Ivory Coast of encouraging the bloc to impose harsh sanctions against it, which were lifted in July.
High Court challenge over Rwanda policy begins
Asylum seekers would be denied their human rights if deported from the UK to Rwanda, an “authoritarian state” which tortures and murders its political opponents, the High Court has been told.
Current home secretary Priti Patel is waging a legal war to defend her policy that some migrants crossing the Channel can be flown directly to the east African state for their asylum claims to be heard.
The court battle opened on Monday morning and is set to span the week, as Boris Johnson hands over to Liz Truss and Ms Patel is tipped to be replaced at the Home Office.
Raza Husain QC, representing a collection of asylum seekers in the case, told judges Rwanda cracks down on political opponents and argued the country has a sub-standard immigration system that the UK should not rely on.
“We make no bones about our submission that Rwanda is, in substance, a one-party authoritarian state with extreme levels of suveillance which does not tolerate political opposition”, he said, opening the case.
He said the country’s government “tolerates political oppression” in a “regime” which “repeatedly imprisons, tortures, and murders those it considers to be opponents”.
Mr Husain argued police violence is used to crack down on freedom of speech, while outspoken critics are subjected to “oppression”.
And he said the country has a lack of experience in dealing with asylum claims, as well as low numbers of interpreters and specialist immigration lawyers.
“These issues are significant, because an asylum system which doesn’t understand what individuals are telling you doesn’t ensure individuals have legal help to make their case”, he said.
“(If it) can’t take decisions according to properly resourced processes and a proper understanding of the law, it will get decisions wrong. It will wrongly deny asylum seekers their rights.”
More than 40 barristers are lined up for the High Court battle, with at least 39 bundles of written evidence so far handed to Lord Justice Lewis and Mr Justice Swift.
Opponents of the policy say the government knew of problems in Rwanda before the decision was made in April this year to go ahead with deportations.
In September 2020, the British High Commissioner to Rwanda told the Foreign Office: “Rwanda’s human rights record and lack of political space sits at odds with UK and Commonwealth values.”
She noted “intimidation and harassment, including detention on politically-motivated charges” for opposition politicians, adding: “Both abroad and within Rwanda, a number of opposition party members have been disappeared or killed.”
The court is due to hear allegations of asylum seekers being turned away from Rwanda, migrants returned to their home nation or transferred to neighbouring African nations, and claims about the safety and stability of the immigration system.
Announcing the policy in April, the Home Secretary called it a “world-first agreement” with Rwanda and said it was aimed at deterring migrants from crossing the Channel.
The Home Secretary “considers that there is a strong public interest in deterring such illegal, dangerous and unnecessary journeys from safe third countries to the UK by asylum seekers”, her lawyers said in written submissions to the court.
“To achieve that aim, the UK looked to form a partnership with another third country to which asylum seekers, who have made such journeys to the UK, could safely be relocated. That third country had to be safe but without the same attractions to migrants as the UK appears to present. Several countries were considered but Rwanda was the first to be selected.”
The first flight was grounded after a series of legal challenges and the intervention of the European Court of Human Rights, putting the policy on hold until the end of this High Court battle.
The Home Office has defended the policy, calling Rwanda a “fundamentally safe and secure country, with a track record of supporting asylum seekers”.
Ms Patel’s lawyers argue the policy is “lawful” with “no risk of harm” to migrants sent to Rwanda, and their human rights would not be infringed.
“Even if they are not granted refugee status in Rwanda, there is no risk of their being removed from Rwanda to their country of origin”, said the legal submissions.
“Rwanda does not conduct forcible removals to the countries of which these claimants are nationals. There is no risk of indirect refoulement as the only country they could be returned to is the UK.
“Arrangements have been made to ensure they are provided with suitable accommodation and support in Rwanda.”
The hearing continues.
Ukraine war pushes global displaced to record high, U.N. says
Russia’s war in Ukraine has pushed global displacement figures to record levels, the U.N. refugee agency said Thursday, calling the statistics a “tragic milestone.”
Over the past decade, levels of displacement have increased every year, the United Nations noted in its global trends report — with figures currently at the highest level since record keeping began. At the end of 2021, 89.3 million people were displaced, the agency said, citing war, disasters, violence, persecution and human rights abuses as some of the factors.
As of today, more than 100 million people have been forced to flee their homes — more than 1 percent of humanity
The invasion of Ukraine triggered the fastest forced-displacement crisis since World War II — which, in conjunction with other emergency situations in Afghanistan, Africa and elsewhere, “pushed the figure over the dramatic milestone,” the agency said. More than 5 million Ukrainian refugees have been recorded across Europe since Russia’s invasion.
Children make up almost half of the total global refugee population of the last decade, UNICEF said in a separate report Thursday. A record 36.5 million children were displaced by the end of 2021 amid cascading crises, including in Afghanistan, Yemen and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Climbing trends of global displacement will continue unless the international community makes a “new, concerted push towards peacemaking,” the U.N. refugee agency said Thursday.
Last year, several conflicts began around the world and existing ones escalated — with about two dozen nations, home to a total of 850 million people, experiencing medium- or high-intensity conflicts, according to the World Bank. “Fragility, conflict-related fatalities, and social unrest have increased dramatically,” World Bank Group President David Malpass said in March.
On top of conflict, food scarcity, inflation and the climate crisis have exacerbated hardship and stretched the humanitarian response, the United Nations noted.
Two-thirds of refugees and displaced people came from only five countries: Syria, at 6.8 million, followed by Venezuela, Afghanistan, South Sudan and Myanmar.
Low- and middle-income countries hosted more than 80 percent of all refugees and Venezuelans displaced abroad, the U.N. refugee agency said. Turkey hosted the largest refugee population worldwide — at 3.8 million — then Uganda, Pakistan and Germany. On a per capita basis, Lebanon — at 1 in 8 per capita — followed by Jordan and Turkey, hosted the largest number of refugees.
After leaving dangerous situations at home, many refugees still face conditions of precarity and vulnerability.
The World Food Program last month warned that Syrian families living in refugee camps in Iraq were facing “alarming levels” of food insecurity. The nation hosts around 260,000 Syrian refugees, including over 95,000 in camps.
There are 2.6 million Afghan refugees globally — with 2.2 million in neighboring Iran and Pakistan alone. As part of the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from the country last year, the Biden administration evacuated 76,000 Afghans to the United States, leaving behind thousands others who wanted to escape as the Taliban took over.
The U.S. Afghan resettlement program has been overwhelmed, leaving some refugees struggling, separated from family members and in limbo in trying to find a long-term path forward.
Many, including a coalition of Democratic senators late last month, have criticized what they see as the government’s asymmetrical treatment of refugees from different nations.
“While the U.S. response to the Ukrainian refugee crisis has been admirable, it is unfortunate that this welcoming and accommodating model is not the standard for all humanitarian crises, wherever they occur, whether in Haiti, throughout Central America, in Africa, the Pacific, and elsewhere,” the senators wrote.
The conflict in Ukraine has also contributed to soaring food and fuel prices around the world. From Nigeria to Yemen, the crisis is hitting developing countries particularly hard, exacerbating hunger and food shortages.
“Ripple effects of the war in Ukraine have been reverberating globally against the backdrop of a gradual and uneven economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic,” a U.N. analysis of the world’s hunger hot spots noted.
With key ports in Ukraine blocked, U.S. and European officials have accused Russia of using food as a weapon in the conflict. “Disruptions to the Ukrainian agricultural sector and constrained exports reduce global food supply, further increase global food prices, and finally push up already high levels of domestic food price inflation,” the United Nations said.Ukraine and Russia produce about a third of the wheat traded in global markets and about a quarter of the world’s barley, according to the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute.