Places Not To Be, Part 2
Just to continue the tour through various non-Gaza crises and humanitarian catastrophes:
Southern Philippines:
I realize the phrase "ugly little war" is both redundant and patronizing, but can't think of a better way to describe the decades-long insurgency in Mindanao, in the southern Philippines, where various insurgent groups have been fighting for Muslim self-rule for over thirty years. Today, the main rebel group is the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, or MILF. (No comment added, none necessary.)
The fighting has flared since August, after the Supreme Court of the Philippines overturned part of a proposed peace agreement between the rebels and the Government. Just last week, a series of rebel attacks left nine civilians dead. According to a recent article in the New York Times:
"In recent months, fighting between the separatists and the government has killed dozens from each side and displaced more than half a million Filipinos from their homes. Tens of thousands are in refugee camps in several provinces."
According to the Filipino Government's own figures, 300,000 are still displaced, with 76,000 living in evacuation centers, including schools.
Which is where our story begins. According to one farmer who'd fled his home:
"We have appealed to the government but nobody seems to be listening to us. There is no relief assistance. It was only temporary. What can we do?"
An October fact-finding mission by Filippino NGOs discovered repeated abuses by both the rebels and the military. As cited in a recent IRIN article, the report describes how the impact falls most heavily on women and children:
"Thousands of children are traumatised and adversely affected in their development and their rights as children are severely violated. In most evacuation centres, the majority of the evacuees are women and children. Several women are denied their rights to maternal care."
Northern Sri Lanka:
Over the past few months, the Sri Lankan Government has over-run large swaths of rebel held territory in the north, recently capturing the rebels' de facto capital. The rebel Tamil Tigers have been fighting since 1983 to create an independent Tamil homeland - according to the AP, "the conflict has killed more than 70,000 people."
In late December, Human Rights Watch released a report detailing the situation of civilians caught in the conflict. The title - Beseiged, Displaced and Detained: The Plight of Civilians in Sri Lanka's Vanni Region - pretty much says it all.
According to the report, the Government has imposed "sweeping...restrictions on humantiarian access," as well as "indefinitely detaining virtually all civilians" fleeing from rebel-controlled areas, holding them in military-run camps.
The rebels are also to blame, including efforts to block civilians from fleeing into safer areas, and recruitment of civilians - including children - for forced labor.
Somalia:
As horrific as the situation in the southern Philippines or northern Sri Lanka, nothing really compares to the hell of Somalia. As I wrote last week:
Over 100,000 people fled Mogadishu alone between August and November. All together, 1.3 million Somalis are now homeless - 400,000 of whom are huddled in the Afgooye camps alone."
And yet the situation continues to grow worse. Over the past week, renewed fighting forced at least 50,000 people had to flee their homes in the Galgaduud region. (Local officials estimate that the numbers of displaced as much higher, closer to 80,000.)
Getting assistance to those displaced is increasingly difficult. According to a recent IRIN article: "Most of the displaced have scattered across rural villages, which are hard to reach because of rampant insecurity and limited resources." They're in desperate need of shelter materials, food and water.
To make matters worse, the region is experiencing a severe drought as well.
This most recent fighting marks a potentially disastrous turn, as Islamic insurgents - which to now have been battling against the Somali Government and its Ethiopian allies - now turn on each other.
For its part, Ethiopia, which has occupied Somalia since January 2007, has just begun withdrawing its troops. Without Ethiopia's support, there's little hope that Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) can survive. Not that this necessarily makes much of a difference, seeing as how the TFG currently controls only "a few city blocks" in Mogadishu.
Zimbabwe:
And, finally, Zimbabwe, where the cholera epidemic has now killed 1,732 people. To make matters worse, the Red Cross now warns that the onset of the rainy season could help spread the disease even further. According to Francois Le Goff of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC):
"The worst could be heavy rains causing not only this cholera to spread, but floods. It means that the water level will cover the fields, that the crops are destroyed, that people cannot travel or we cannot have access to the area."
Le Goff estimates that number of cholera deaths could reach more than 3,000 over the next three months.
For more information on challenges facing aid agencies in Zimbabwe, see here.
Needless to say, this is not a comprehensive list. (Hello, Colombia.) At the least, here's just to hoping that next week is better than last.
[Photo from Zimbabwe - originally published in The Guardian]
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