Day: August 6, 2022

The IRC calls on the EU to urgently expand safe, regular pathways to protection in Europe so people are not forced to risk their lives crossing the deadly Central Mediterranean Sea

Brussels, Belgium, August 6, 2022 — The International Rescue Committee is calling for urgent action from the EU and its member states as the number of refugees and other migrants risking the treacherous journey from northern Africa to Europe continues to increase.

According to UNHCR, more than 35,000 people have arrived in Italy by sea so far this year, with reports of 192 arrivals few nights ago. This marks an increase on the 27,200 received during the same period in 2021. Tragically, at least 875 people have lost their lives along the Central Mediterranean Route in 2022 so far.

As the number of people forced to take these dangerous journeys continues to rise, the IRC is urging the EU and its member states to urgently expand safe and regular pathways to protection in Europe, and ensure they are supported along their journeys.

Susanna Zanfrini, IRC Italy Head of Office, says:

“Nobody should be forced to risk their life in a rickety boat or unseaworthy vessel in search of safety and protection. Yet, again this summer, we’re witnessing a spike in the number of people attempting to cross one of the world’s deadliest migration routes. Many of these people have been driven from their homes by rising food insecurity, unemployment, and the impact of climate change, with some fleeing violence, conflict or persecution in countries like Afghanistan, Sudan or Somalia.

“Those who reach Lampedusa are crammed into a reception centre that is currently full to more than four times its capacity – nearly 1,900 housed in a space intended for just 350. This desperate situation could and should have been avoided. Arrivals to islands such as Lampedusa tend to peak over the summer months due to better weather conditions. Rather than shirking their responsibilities and demonising people in search of protection, Italy and other EU states must cooperate to expand safe, regular pathways for those forced to make the desperate trek across the sea, and welcome new arrivals with humanity, dignity and in a spirit of solidarity.”

Tom Garofalo, IRC Libya Country Director, says:

“People are desperate to leave Libya because of the conditions they are living in. Every day, they know they could be abducted, arbitrarily detained and subjected to violence and abuse. Risking their lives at sea is a last resort. Yet, tragically, this route across the Central Mediterranean Sea is fraught with dangers, and has claimed the lives of more than 870 people already this year.

“In 2022, more than 9,800 refugees, asylum seekers and other migrants have been intercepted by the Libyan authorities, including the Coast Guard, and returned to Libyan shores. The IRC’s teams at disembarkation points in Libya regularly treat the horrific injuries sustained by those sent back to the country – dehydration, exhaustion, burns from leaked fuel, and other physical and mental scars from their traumatic journeys. Yet, rather than receiving the lasting support they need, the majority are sent to detention centres where conditions are often deplorable.

“As we enter the peak summer months, we know that more and more desperate people will attempt the dangerous journey from Libya in search of safety in Europe. It is absolutely critical that the EU relaunches its own dedicated search and rescue mission in the Mediterranean as soon as possible to prevent further suffering and loss of life.”

Imogen Sudbery, IRC Executive Director of Policy & Advocacy, Europe, says:

“As the number of displaced people globally has soared to more than 100 million for the first time, it’s imperative that EU leaders take urgent, principled action to prevent more suffering at Europe’s borders. If they fail to do so, the Mediterranean will not just become a graveyard for more people seeking protection, but for its own values of human rights, dignity and equality.”

As the death toll in the Central Mediterranean continues to mount, the IRC is calling on the EU and its member states to:

Expand safe, regular pathways to protection and mobility from Africa to Europe so that people are not forced to risk their lives on dangerous journeys. The first step will be to commit to resettling at least 40,000 refugees in 2023, paying particular attention to needs along the Central Mediterranean Route. This must be complemented by scaling up safe, regular routes to Europe via increased humanitarian corridors, family reunification and visas for work or study.

Urgently establish an EU-funded search and rescue mission in the Mediterranean Sea, as well as ensuring that any support – including financial, technological or training – to the Libyan authorities, including the Coast Guard, on policies and practices that concern migration, is conditional on upholding the human rights of people on the move.

Strengthen coordination with other maritime rescue actors – including NGOs – so that all people rescued at sea are taken to a place of safety, which Libya is not, as repeatedly stated by UNHCR.

Prioritise the end of arbitrary detention and the release of all those currently held in detention centres in all diplomatic efforts with the Libyan authorities, while urging the latter to ensure alternatives to detention for people on the move – especially women, and children who face specific protection risks.

Support partner countries along the Central Mediterranean Route in promoting access to services and protection measures – especially for women, children and others in vulnerable situations – as well as ensuring access to information about administrative, legal and basic social services along the route.

Reach a political solution for a permanent, legally binding and predictable responsibility-sharing system, based on relocations, so that countries on Europe’s borders do not bear disproportionate responsibility for supporting new arrivals.

Present in Libya since August 2016, the IRC provides life-saving health and protection services, supports wider health system strengthening efforts, and builds the capacity of Libyan youth in peacebuilding and governance initiatives. In 2022 so far, the IRC has carried out 49 emergency responses, supporting more than 3,800 people, including 190 women and 228 children.

In Italy, the IRC works to protect refugees and asylum seekers, with a focus on women, unaccompanied children and those requiring psychosocial support. The IRC works with partners to enhance their capacity to swiftly identify trafficking survivors, and strengthen their access to legal assistance and support. The online platform Refugee.info provides clear and timely information for refugees and asylum seekers in need of local support services, empowering them to make informed decisions about their lives.

Source: International Rescue Committee

Early Europeans drank milk for thousands of years before they evolved the ability to fully digest it as adults, scientists say.

New results published in the journal Nature suggest that being able to digest the lactose in milk wasn’t usually much of an advantage for ancient people in Europe. Instead, the new study suggests that famine and disease made lactose intolerance deadly.

The new discovery challenges the long-standing assumption that dairy farming spread through ancient populations alongside the genetic quirks that prevent adults from losing the ability to digest lactose.

Like other young mammals, human children produce an enzyme called lactase that breaks down lactose. The gene for lactase usually turns off in adulthood because aside from humans, adult mammals don’t drink milk.

Without lactase, lactose from milk ends up feeding gut microbes that produce gas, which can cause uncomfortable digestive problems.

“You’ll get some cramps. You’ll get some diarrhea. Might fart a bit more. It might be unpleasant for you,” said geneticist Mark Thomas of University College London, who led the genetics work for the new study. “It might be embarrassing, but you’re not going to die.”

But when our ancient ancestors suffered through plagues or famines, getting diarrhea from drinking milk was probably more than just uncomfortable, the authors suggest.

“Then we’re talking about a life-threatening condition,” Thomas said.

About one-third of people alive today have a genetic variant that keeps their lactase gene from turning off. This trait has evolved independently multiple times in the ancestors of people now living in parts of Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and Europe.

Scientists long assumed that lactase persistence evolved alongside the spread of dairy farming, which happened over a few thousand years beginning around 7000 BC.

However, earlier studies revealed that lactase persistence was vanishingly rare in Europe until about 3,000 years ago. But after that, it took only a few thousand years for the trait to become widespread — the blink of an eye in evolutionary time.

Why this trait would evolve so quickly was a mystery.

“Lactase persistence has been under enormous amounts of natural selection over the last eight to ten thousand years … more than any other part of the genome in Europeans,” said Thomas. “It was, for a very long period of time, the one trait upon which life and death pivoted more than any other. … It’s insane. It just defies explanation.”

Searching for an explanation, the authors sought to reconstruct the history of milk use in the region over the past 9,000 years. They examined fat residues left on more than 7,000 pottery shards collected at 550 archaeological sites across Europe.

“When people were cooking … fat liquefies and then penetrates into the pores of the pottery,” said organic geochemist and study co-author Mélanie Roffet-Salque of the University of Bristol. “It’s quite stunning, really. But thousands of years later when archaeologists excavate a piece of pottery that had been discarded and then we analyze the pottery, it’s still there.”

The pottery shards showed that milk consumption was widespread across most of Europe for thousands of years before most Europeans became lactose tolerant.

Studying health data on modern Britons, the researchers didn’t find any evidence that drinking milk hurts the health of modern adults who don’t produce lactase.

Surprisingly, using data on ancient population fluctuations to approximate when and where ancient Europeans dealt with famine and disease, the researchers found that sickness and hunger might explain the evolution of lactase persistence better than milk consumption.

Famine could have forced ancient people to drink more milk than usual as other food sources ran out. And both malnutrition and disease could have made lactose-induced diarrhea very dangerous. Severe diarrhea can kill — it is still the second leading cause of death for children under 5 worldwide.

Shevan Wilkin, a biomolecular archaeologist at the University of Zurich who reviewed the new paper, said the research was an important step forward but that she’s not necessarily convinced that famine and disease alone can explain the evolution of lactase persistence.

“The reason I don’t know if I think they’re right, I also don’t know if I think they’re wrong, is before 2,000 years ago, there were absolutely times of famine,” Wilkin said.

Thomas said he’d like to see similar studies done in Africa, where lactase persistence evolved independently three different times. Wilkin agreed, noting that Europe is over-studied, and that future research should focus on other regions, including central Asia, where people drink lots of milk despite lacking a genetic variant that keeps lactase from turning off in adults.

“I think it’d be really interesting to apply this [in] multiple places,” said Wilkin. “It’s just such a cool and ambitious undertaking, and I think it’s really going to spur a ton of new studies.”

Source: Voice of America

ACCRA, GHANA —

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield on Friday announced a $150 million package for Africa to help address food and humanitarian crises.

Speaking before a gathering of over 500 participants at the University of Ghana in Accra, Thomas-Greenfield said the world is facing unprecedented food crises, requiring what she termed an “unprecedented global response.”

“For our part, the United States is committed to this work. … But more funding is needed to address food security and to address crises that compound food security, like refugees and internally displaced people,” she said. “I am proud to announce nearly $150 million in new, additional humanitarian funding and development assistance, pending Congressional approval, for Africa.”

She said the new package, if approved by Congress, will increase U.S. humanitarian assistance to Africa to $6.6 billion since the beginning of this year.

The ambassador says worldwide food prices are 23% higher than a year ago, partly a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – the two countries combined provide over 40% of Africa’s wheat supply.

Thomas-Greenfield said the new U.S. funding will expand investments in fertilizer, grains and other crops in Africa to meet “the goal of increasing resilience to future shocks.”

It includes $2.5 million in new development assistance for Ghana and $20 million for Uganda, where Thomas-Greenfield stopped before visiting the West African country.

She said the new funding includes more than $127 million in additional humanitarian assistance for Africa to provide “lifesaving support to refugees, asylum-seekers, internally displaced persons, stateless persons and persecuted people across Africa.”

Condemning the war in Ukraine, she said the U.N. Security Council must be proactive to prevent food from being used as a weapon of war.

“The world needs to see how food insecurity increases the risk of conflict. And the Security Council needs to do a better job of stopping food from being used as a weapon of war,” she said.

Thomas-Greenfield said Africa has the potential to become its own breadbasket and must take advantage of the current situation to forge partnerships with civil society and the private sector to build the food systems and structures of the future.

Source: Voice of America