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Keywords: Unhcr

  • INTERNATIONAL

    Pope takes refugee concerns on the road

    • Robin Osborne
    • 05 September 2024

    Pope Francis has frequently voiced sympathy for refugee concerns and before leaving on this trip, he reaffirmed his call for safe migration pathways for people fleeing their own countries for fear of persecution, describing any refusal to harbour asylum seekers as a ‘grave sin’.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Numbers of war and peace

    • Sergey Maidukov Sr.
    • 20 June 2024

    Unlike the initial days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when thousands eagerly gathered at recruitment centers, the army now faces difficulties in enlisting new soldiers as the troops continue to endure ongoing hardship. 

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Famine looms in Sudan as conflict enters its second year

    • Kirsty Robertson
    • 30 April 2024

    One year after civil war erupted, Sudan has become one of the world’s worst humanitarian tragedies with around 5 million people experiencing emergency levels of hunger. This puts Sudan on the brink of famine. Sudanese leaders claim this is the crisis the world has forgotten.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Best of 2023: How Australia's asylum seeker policy has evolved over thirty years

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 04 January 2024

    Throughout recent decades of Australian history, the stance every government has taken on asylum seekers has reflected the shifting political landscapes and challenging humanitarian issues that have continually shaped Australia's response to those seeking refuge. 

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Trying to hold on to the better angels of our nature

    • Warwick McFadyen
    • 17 October 2023
    3 Comments

    Most people of sympathy and empathy would believe there is an invisible thread that binds humanity. To think otherwise, to echo British jurist Lord Denning, is to consider a panorama too awful to contemplate, that is, what if a life is just mere object to another? When the massacre becomes the norm, does the world become numb to it? 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Three steps back and one step forward: Three decades of asylum seekers in Australia

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 28 July 2023

    How has Australia's asylum seeker policy changed over the past thirty years? The approach of every government has reflected the shifting political landscapes and challenging humanitarian issues that have continually shaped Australia's response to those seeking refuge. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    When ‘Good Refugees’ are admitted

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 21 March 2022
    12 Comments

    While Australia has developed into a multi-ethnic, cosmopolitan state based on immigration and humanitarian intakes, the country has never gotten away from the sense that some are simply more welcome than others. Be they migrants, refugees, or asylum seekers, preferential treatment abounds.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Salvaging the shipwreck

    • Stephen Minas
    • 18 January 2022
    26 Comments

    During his December journey to the eastern Mediterranean nations of Cyprus and Greece, Pope Francis drew attention to the conditions for irregular migration that result in thousands drowning at sea and many more languishing for years in camps. The International Organization for Migration records 23,150 missing migrants in the Mediterranean since 2014.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    The Tampa legacy 20 years on

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 07 September 2021
    23 Comments

    It took 438 desperate human beings upon the overladen wooden fishing boat, the KM Palapa, to present Australia’s Howard government in August 2001 with an electoral opportunity. At first, there was feigned ignorance from Canberra about any signs of desperation. The vessel, lacking power, lay some 100km off Christmas Island. Despite a coast guard plane noting men jumping up and down on the roof in a frenzy, nothing was initially done.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    My halted journey toward freedom

    • JN Joniad and Ashfaq Hussain
    • 10 December 2020
    3 Comments

    I was just fifteen years old when I was forced to run for my life. I dreamed of seeking a better education in Australia and becoming a pilot. Instead, I became a refugee in Indonesia, which does not recognize my existence and basic rights. I am even refused an education in this country. I have been in limbo for the last eight years.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Reflecting on this Refugee Week

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 11 June 2020
    10 Comments

    This year Refugee Week has been swallowed by the disruption caused by COVID-19, and by the fracturing of society in the United States. In a world where people naturally turn inwards, those who seek protection from persecution receive little public attention or sympathy. It becomes all the more important to reflect on the world of which refugees are part and why their lives matter to us.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Kiribati: What makes a 'climate refugee'?

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 24 January 2020
    10 Comments

    New Zealand's judicial channels found against the Kiribati national, claiming he did not satisfy the definition of refugee within international law. He was deported. This month, the UNHRC did not find the deportation unlawful, a move that former Fleet Street editor Damian Wilson said had 'piled on the misery in the climate change mess'.

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