Fwd: TALK BACK, Vol.1, #7, 1999 (excerpts)
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Subject: Fwd: TALK BACK, Vol.1, #7, 1999 (excerpts)
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Original sender: Eldar Zeynalov <[email protected]>
Fwd: TALK BACK, Vol.1, #7, 1999 (excerpts)
-----Forwarded message-----
From: ICVA Secretariat <[email protected]>
TALK BACK
The Newsletter of the International Council of Voluntary Agencies
(ICVA)
Volume 1, #7; October 7, 1999
* * *
NGOs PLAN MEETING ON THE NORTH CAUCASUS AS 150,000 ARE DISPLACED BY
FIGHTING IN CHECHNYA
Two prominent NGOs will hold a day-long briefing on the current crisis
in the North Caucasus in Geneva on October 12.
The day-long meeting is being organised by the Norwegian Refugee
Council and the UK-based Forum for Early Warning and Early Response
(FEWER). The meeting will hear from a Russian Deputy Minister, and
five NGOs from the region that are working with displaced and
refugees.
The current fighting in Chechnya has forced 33,000 Chechens into
Dagestan, and another 120,000 into Ingushetia, according to Patrick
Daru, an expert on the region at the Norwegian Refugee Council.
Mrs Ogata, the High Commissioner for Refugees said in her opening
EXCOM statement that both Ingushetia and Russia have asked UNHCR for
help. But, she warned, "criminal gangs" make it very difficult for
UNHCR to deploy staff in the region. Vincent Cochetel, head of the
UNHCR office in Vladikavkaz spent almost a year in captivity after
being kidnapped.
*Further information: contact Patrick Daru at the NRC:
tel: +41.22.788.8085;
e-mail: [email protected]
**
ASYLUM-SEEKERS TARGETED BY MOSCOW POLICE IN BOMB BLAST ROUND-UP
517 persons, including asylum-seekers, had been deported from Moscow
by September 28 as part of a massive security operation in the wake of
the recent bomb blasts, according to Equilibre-Solidarity, a
Moscow-based human rights organisation.
A recent report from Equilibre-Solidarity made available to Talk Back
says that asylum-seekers in Moscow are being rounded up, evicted from
apartments, and even sent off to unknown detention centres by security
forces.
The bomb blasts, which the Moscow authorities allege are the work of
Chechen rebels, have caused panic in Moscow and turned Muscovites
against the city's 30,000 unregistered aliens, many of them
asylum-seekers. According to Equilibre-Solidarity, everyone from
outside the city - non-Muscovites or foreigners - is being told to
register with the authorities. One in four of those previously
registered is being rejected, rendering them liable to deportation.
Up to 300 Africans have been seeking assistance each day at the
Refugee Reception Centre (RRC) in Moscow, which is funded and managed
by UNHCR. Asylum-seekers in the centre have reportedly been beaten up
by "local teenagers."
Even if asylum-seekers receive a certificate from the RRC, this is not
necessarily recognised by the police. In order to get asylum from the
Moscow Migration Service, the applicant also needs to prove residency
under the system of "propiska."
But propiska has become much harder to obtain in the current climate
of fear and xenophobia. Police are checking individual apartments and
warning landlords not to rent out to persons without documents.
According to the paper, sixteen asylum-seekers were told to leave at
the insistence of the police in one night alone.
*Issue #4 of Talk Back was a special issue on refugee and migration
issues in the CIS.
* * *
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TALK BACK is also available on the ICVA web site: <www.icva.ch>.
* * *
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