'Lampedusa, Italy: survivor claims around 100 died on Libya refugee boat'

from the telegraph.......

"The female survivor said: "We were 300, but around 100, especially women, did not survive, and the men were forced to throw their bodies into the sea."

The Moroccan woman's claim contradicted information provided earlier by Italian coast guard spokesman Vittorio Alessandro, who said 300 badly dehydrated refugees were rescued from the boat after it was discovered 90 nautical miles 104 miles south of Lampedusa.

But Antonio Morana, the commander of the Lampedusa port, said rescue speedboats sent out to assist the refugees "saw clothes floating in the sea in the area where they were operating and maybe also corpses."

Morana said rescue workers were not able to check whether there were in fact bodies floating in the water.

"We had to leave to quickly transport the 300 migrants that were in a precarious state of health," he said, adding that darkness made it equally difficult to scan the water for bodies"...........READ MORE

'Dadaab, the world's biggest refugee camp'....380,000 refugees

from aljazeera........

........................"Throughout the journey, I had wondered what a refugee complex widely billed as the largest in the world would look like. The widely distributed aerial photographs from the UN from back in the early nineties show the staggering scope of the settlements. They are enough to give one the shivers.


In an area spanning 50km, just two hours away from the Kenyan-Somali border, three camps - Dagahaley, Ifo and Hagadera - were originally set up to host a total of 90,000 people.


Twenty years later, with more than 380,000 people registered as refugees at the Dadaab complex, I was curious as to how the camp had changed.


And if the camps were indeed overflowing with people as we'd been told over and over again, where are the new arrivals living?


We are quickly ushered around the UNHCR reception centre in Dagahaley. We are greeted by the sight of a few hundred people standing behind barbed-wire fences waiting to be registered as refugees by both the Kenyan authorities and the UN, so they might be given a ration of food, a mat, a pot and a white plastic sheet to cover the hut they are to build out of branches, twigs and sticks.


Each camp sees hundreds of new arrivals each day. The registration process is arduous, and some only complete their registration days after their arrival - sometimes, even a week - this, after walking for anything between five and 20 days to get here in the first place"..............READ MORE

'Plea for 'massive aid' for Africa refugees'

from aljazeera.........

"Hundreds of thousands of people continue to flee drought in East Africa, walking for days in search of food and water, with aid agencies saying the situation is now extremely serious.

Many of those fleeing have come to the Dadaab refugee complex, in northeastern Kenya, near the borders of Ethiopia and Somalia.

According to doctors in the area, most of the children have severe cases of acute malnutrition and related complications such as anaemia.

"The children are presenting with skin complications where their skin is peeling off mainly due to deficiency in micro-nutrients," Dr Milhia Abdul Kader said. "They are coming in a very bad shape."

Speaking to Al Jazeera from a refugee camp in Kenya, Antonio Guterres, the head of UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, expressed grave concern and appealed for "massive aid" to provide the basic necessities"...........READ MORE

"Horn of Africa: 60 babies are dying every day".........from the independent....READ MORE

'UNHCR report says refugee numbers at 15-year high'

from the guardian........

"The number of forcibly displaced people around the world has reached a 15-year high, according to the UN high commission for refugees(UNHCR), with the vast majority languishing in poor countries ill-equipped to cater to their needs.

The UNHCR's 2010 trends report estimated that there were 43.7 million refugees and people displaced within their country by events such as war and natural disasters at the end of last year. More than half of the total are children. The figure does not take into account the new wave of migration set in train by the upheaval of the Arab spring"...............LINK

"Record 42 Million Displaced Worldwide By Climate Change "Mega-Storms"

from care2.com.........

"According to a report released yesterday by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) (a United Nations-guided monitoring and advocacy organization), a staggering 42 million people were displaced in 2010 by what the IDMC calls "mega-disasters" (violent storms, massive earthquakes, record flooding and other large-scale natural disasters).  The IDMC expressed concern that this number of displaced individuals due to climate-related events has more than doubled since 2009's 17 million sudden natural disaster displacements.

Why the profound increase in just one year? Many experts are pointing to climate change, and warning that such precedent-setting weather events will only increase as our human industrial impact on the environment continues to build"..............LINK

Italy's Migrant Crisis.............

'Arab Refugees Finding Harsh Welcome In Europe'

United Nations estimates 50 million refugees by 2020.............

from NPR.......

"Refugees fleeing the upheaval in North Africa are running into a different sort of political conflict in Europe".

"Since mid-January, more than 10,000 refugees from countries such as Tunisia and Libya have arrived at the Italian island of Lampedusa."

"Marine Le Pen, who heads France's far-right National Front Party and is a leading contender in next year's presidential election in France, appeared on the island on Monday to let them know they aren't welcome."......read more here

‘Biblical Exodus’ From Africa Feeds Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric'

the UN estimates 50 million refugees from war and environmental concerns by 2020...................read it here:


from Bloomberg
"As boats carrying hundreds of Africans set sail for a better life inEurope, they were met on Italy’s Lampedusa island with two words by a 5-foot, 8-inch blonde: go away.".........read more here:.....


and from USA TODAY......."Italy warned Monday that it was facing a refugee and humanitarian emergency, with some 15,000 Tunisians having arrived in recent weeks and fears that the start of U.S. and European airstrikes on Libya could unleash even more migrants."....read more here: