World Relief MN // Refugees in the News

An Eritrean refugee lies contorted on the ground. Balanced on his belly, his hands clutched his feet behind his back, bending his legs back almost double.

Paulus is demonstrating a torture technique known colloquially as "the helicopter".

It is one he knows well. It was in this excruciating position, he claims, that soldiers left him tied up for 136 hours, in an eattempt to force him to recant his faith.

"They kept asking me to sign a document," he recalls, "and agree to not participate in church activities or express my faith in any form. I was told I would be untied and released the minute I agreed to their requests." Read more...

'Iraq drives' global refugee rise

June 19, 2007 (BBC)

The number of refugees worldwide has risen for the first time in five years, largely because of violence in Iraq, according to a United Nations report. Full Text

Refugees' fate 'getting harder'

June 20, 2007 (BBC)

Conditions for asylum-seekers are becoming tougher in many countries because of fears of terrorist attacks, the UN refugee agency has warned. Full Text

The Fighting Spirit of Burma's Karen

March 1, 2007 (BBC)

In a second of a series of articles from the Thai-Burma border, the BBC's Kare McGeown lokos at the small rebel army that has spent nearly 60 years fighting the Burmese government. Full Text

World Relief Calls for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, Humane Treatment of Immigrants Detained

March 30, 2007 - Baltimore, Maryland

A Baltimore-based international development organization calls for immigrants taken into custody by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to be treated with dignity and respect. More than 50 immigrants employed by eight local businesses were taken into custody on Thursday. This is part of a country-wide operation that has raided businesses in states including Nebraska, Massachusetts, Texas, Minnesota and Illinois in the past month arresting more than 1,200 staff at local businesses. People have been moved to detention centers across the country, separating communities, and leaving people unable to locate their spouses or children......... Full Text

Somalia tops minority threat list

March 20, 2007 (CNN)

Somalia has overtaken Iraq as the world's most dangerous country for minority groups, a study has found.Full Text

Iraqis Being Processed for Refugee Status

March 6, 2007 (USINFO, Us Dept of State) - Washington

Processing of Iraqi refugees for resettlement already has begun, the State Department's top refugee policy official says. Ellen Sauerbrey, assistant secretary of state for population, refugees, and migration, says the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has registered about 80,000 displaced Iraqis, including in Syria, Jordan, Turkey and Egypt. Sauerbrey told USINFO March 1 that the United States has received the first UNHCR referrals... Full Text

Bush to allow 7,000 Iraqi refugees to immigrate

February 14, 2007 (Free Press) - Washington

The Bush administration plans to allow about 7,000 Iraqi refugees to settle in the United States over the next year, a huge expansion at a time of mounting international pressure to help those who have fled in the nearly four-year-old war. The United States has allowed only 463 Iraq refugees into the country since the war began, even though some 3.8 million have left. A senior State Department official described the expanded program on condition of anonymity ahead of a formal announcement later Wednesday. The administration also plans to pledge $18 million for a worldwide resettlement and relief program. The United Nations has asked for $60 million from nations around the world... Full Text

Relief Agency Says ‘Material Support’ Law Hurts Terror Victims

September 13, 2006 - Baltimore, Maryland

A law designed to keep terrorists out of the United States is actually hurting victims of terrorism overseas, a relief agency said today. The broad interpretation of the law prevents legitimate refugees from seeking asylum in the U.S., potentially leaving them at the mercy of their oppressors overseas, Baltimore-based World Relief reported. The evangelical agency has asked the Bush administration to give attention to the problem, revolving around the issue of 'material support.' In a letter, prominent leaders of faith communities and individuals concerned with protecting victims of persecution stated that “refugees cannot become the unintended victims of the war against terrorism” and that “[the President’s] leadership is needed at this critical juncture so our country can be a place of freedom for those who are persecuted all over the world.” ...Full Text

United States Waives Restriction on Karen Refugee Resettlement

September 1, 2006 (USINFO, US Dept of State) - Washington

Exercising its discretionary authority under U.S. immigration law, the Department of State for a second time has waived a restriction that blocked thousands of Burma's ethnic Karen people, now living in refugee camps in Thailand, from applying for resettlement in the United States. The department announced August 30 that Karen refugees who meet all eligibility requirements of the U.S. Refugee Admissions and Resettlement Program will not be excluded for having "provided material support" to the Karen National Union (KNU), an ethnic secessionist movement that has been active in southeastern Burma since that country's independence from Britain in 1948... Full Text

United States Continues Efforts to Help Darfur Refugees

November 17, 2004 (USINFO, US Dept of State)

A top State Department official termed the crisis in Darfur "the most acute humanitarian emergency in the world today" as he detailed U.S. efforts in refugee affairs for foreign journalists at a Washington Foreign Press Center briefing November 16. In describing a new program of mobile human-rights monitors who would work in the Darfur area of Sudan, Arthur Dewey, assistant secretary in the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, said, "If we fail in Darfur to get this protection regime [of monitors] built up into a robust, respectable, credible, believable force, we will have at least 100,000 refugees more in Chad, and there are about 100,000 now ... ." Full Text

Eritrean Christians tell of torture