*[Enwl-eng] newsletter 5 January 2020
ENWLine
# 57 Sunday, 5 January 2020- edited by Ilaria Saltarelli, Laura Harth and Angelica Russomando
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Making misery pay: Lybia militias take EU funds for migrants Maggie Michael, Lori Hinnant e Renata Brito per ASSOCIATED PRESS NEWS, Tripoli, 31 december 2019 – When the European Union started funneling millions of euros into Lybia to slow the tide of migrants crossing the Mediterranean, the money came with EU promises to improve detention centers notorious for abuse and fight human trafficking. That hasn’t happened. Instead, the misery of migrants in Lybia has spawned a thriving and highly lucrative web of business funded in part by the EU and enabled by the United Nations, an Associated Press investigation for Pulitzer Center has found. The EU has sent more than 327.9 million euros to Lybia, with an additional 41 million approved in early December, largely channeled through U.N. agencies. The AP found that in a country without a functioning government, huge sums of European money have been diverted to intertwined networks of militiamen, traffickers and coast guard members who exploit migrants. In some cases, U.N. officials knew militia networks were getting the money, according to internal emails. .
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2020 Could be Niger’s Year of Reckoning Micah Splangler e Jordie Hannum per Foreign Policy, December 20, 2019 – In November, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that, with the Islamic State’s caliphate mostly abolished in the Middle East, the Sahel is becoming the “preferred area of focus” in the global fight against the organization. The U.N. seems to share his concern: “If we lose Niger, there’s no telling what will happen.” In Burkina Faso the beginnings of a massive humanitarian crisis are already underway. The United Nations recently reported that over 500,000 people have been forcibly displaced from their homes since the beginning of 2019 and in Nigeria, Boko Haram continues to terrorize locals, sending more than 40,000 refugees so far fleeing north in search of safety. Thousand more are expected to follow. In fragile Niger, anyone of these elements could lead to a crisis. Added together, they could create an all-out disaster. In September, the U.N.’s World Food Program declared a Level 3 emergency for Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. The designation is the highest emergency classification in the U.N. system and signals that the world’s largest humanitarian organization, does not have the resources it needs to fully respond to such a complex and evolving situation.
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10 Conflicts to Watch in 2020 Robert Malley per Foreign Policy, December 26, 2019- Local conflicts serve as mirrors for global trends. The ways they ignite, unfold, persist, and are resolved reflect shifts in great powers’ relations, the intensity of their competition, and the breadth of regional actors’ ambitions. They highlights issues with which the international system is obsessed and those toward which it is indifferent. Today these wars tell the story of a global system caught in the early swell of sweeping change - and of regional leaders both emboldened and frightened by the opportunities such a transition presents.
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The Mediterranean is confirmed as the main theatre of migrant deaths According to the International Organization for Migration, the number of deaths of migrants in the middle of December 2019 decreased by 34% compared to the same period of the previous year: 3170 against 4800. The trends for this year that has ended are: 1) Global deaths of migrants crossing borders irregularly declined sharply; 2) Mediterranean sea crossings reached their lowest level since 2014; 3) Horn of Africa crossings to Yemen now average over 10,000 persons per month; 4) 4.8 million Venezuelans are living abroad, mostly in Colombia, Perú, Chile, Ecuador and Brazil. The detailed IOM report, while noting an ongoing decrease, emphasizes the Mediterranean corridor which remains the most deadly. In mid-December, at least 1250 men, women and children died trying to reach Europe. The Mediterranean, for the fifth consecutive year, is confirmed as the main theater of deaths: at least 1000.Since 2014, more than 19,000 migrants and refugees have died in the Mediterranean, more than two thirds of this total have died along the Central Mediterranean route linking Libya and Tunisia to Italy.
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UN: $ 3 billion for 2020. When will the reform take place? The UN General Assembly has approved a $ 3 billion budget to cover 2020 expenses: an increase of $ 8 million compared to what the Secretary General initially asked for. It should be noted that since 1973, it is the second time that the UN has adopted an annual rather than a two-year budget. Beyond the objectives that are proposed and for which this budget is necessary - specifically 17 objectives including the elimination of poverty and hunger, the realization of gender equality and urgent measures to combat the effects of climate change - in October we learned of a crisis in the UN treasury: a serious shortage of liquidity due to the lack of regular payment of the annual dues by the 193 Member States. Ambitious goals that without a real reform of the system will not only be achieved but, in such a context, it will produce the waste of 3 billion dollars.
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