Continuing Conflicts That Create Refugees - December 2023
12 Deteriorated Situations
Sierra Leone, Madagascar, Western Sahara, India-Pakistan, Kashmir Myanmar, South China Sea, Israel/Palestine/West Bank, Iraq, Cameroon, Sudan
Conflict Risk Alerts
Israel/Palestine/West Bank, Lebanon, Sudan,Guatemala, Myanmar, Democratic Republic of Congo
Resolution Opportunities - None
Global Overview - Our monthly conflict tracker highlights six conflict risks in December.
After efforts to extend a Qatar-brokered truce faltered, Israel resumed its onslaught in southern Gaza. The majority of the enclave’s nearly 2 million people are now in the south, many having fled Israel’s military campaign in the north. Already hundreds of Palestinians have died in the past few days of bombardments, adding to the 15,000 plus killed before the truce. Further massive killing and displacement seem almost inevitable.
In Lebanon, deadly border clashes between Hizbollah and Israel expanded in scale and scope, further heightening the risk of full-scale war in the coming weeks.
Election-related violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo could erupt around the 20 December vote amid widespread distrust in the process and fighting in the eastern province of North Kivu, where M23 rebels continue their advance (see this month’s Conflict in Focus).
In Sudan, the Rapid Support Forces continued their multi-pronged offensive, leaving a trail of alleged atrocities in Darfur where the risk of all-out ethnic conflict remains, especially as more armed groups could be drawn in.
The military in Myanmar may step up its brutal response, including indiscriminate bombings, as it faces its most significant battlefield challenges since the February 2021 coup with ethnic armed groups launching attacks on multiple fronts.
Fears rose in Guatemala that President-elect Bernardo Arévalo could face more judicial persecution, including removal of his immunity or even an arrest, that would in turn fuel mass protests and unrest in December.
Read more: Crisis Group, https://is.gd/JVNDCr
With All Eyes on Gaza, Israel Tightens Its Grip on the West Bank
The Israeli army has locked down the West Bank since 7 October, staging several incursions into Palestinian cities, as settler violence also rises. In this Q&A, Crisis Group expert Tahani Mustafa looks at the consequences of this escalation.
Conditions in the West Bank have deteriorated sharply in the weeks since Hamas’s 7 October attack in Israel, mostly in an acceleration of pre-existing trends. The Israeli army has launched numerous raids that, along with acts of violence by Israeli settlers, are taking a mounting toll. Meanwhile, the army has locked down the territory, closing roads and imposing restrictions on internal movement, while also cracking down severely on Palestinian political expression. The economy is paralysed, at particularly high cost to the olive harvest taking place in October and November.
West Bankers fear worse is coming. They are caught between, on the one hand, a deepening occupation and escalating violence from the army and settlers, and on the other, a complete absence of political leadership or a political horizon, leaving them with no real way of checking Israeli actions.
Read more: Crisis Watch, https://is.gd/HkYQP2
Housing Scheme Discriminates Against Refugees and Those Fleeing Violence
The London Borough of Hounslow have consented to a court order agreeing to review its housing allocation scheme to avoid unlawful discrimination against refugees and those fleeing violence, following a claim for judicial review.
The claimant, BN, was a refugee who had fled severe gender-based violence in her home country. Since her arrival in the UK in 2020 she had lived in Hounslow. In 2023, she applied to join Hounslow’s housing register but was refused on the basis that she did not meet the residence criterion under Hounslow’s allocation scheme, which requires applicants to have lived in the borough for 5 years.
BN issued a claim for judicial review of the residence requirement, on the basis that (1) it indirectly discriminated against her contrary to section 19 of the Equality Act 2010 on grounds of race (as a non-UK national) and sex (as a woman), (2) it discriminated against her as a refugee and as a victim of gender-based violence, contrary to Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), read with Article 8, and (3) Hounslow had breached its public sector equality duty (PSED) under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 by failing to consider the impact of the residence requirement on non-UK nationals (including refugees) and women (including those fleeing gender-based violence).
The day before the case was due to be heard by the High Court, Hounslow agreed to settle the case, accepting that it had discriminated against BN contrary to the Equality Act and Article 14 ECHR, and breached its PSED, and agreeing:
Source: Doughty Street Chambers, https://is.gd/YX1Kzp
CCRC: Illegal Entry Case Referred to Crown Court
The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) has referred an illegal entry conviction to the Crown Court.
In December 2019 Fouad Kakaei was convicted at Medway Magistrates’ Court, Kent of entering the United Kingdom illegally, breaching immigration law. He was sentenced to four months imprisonment. ?
In August 2021 Mr Kakaei applied to the CCRC to review his conviction for illegal entry and after a thorough review of his case, the CCRC has decided to refer his conviction to the Crown Court.
The CCRC consider that the prosecution case in December 2019 was based on a misunderstanding of the UK law as it stood at the time of his arrival into the United Kingdom, and had the correct legal position been applied no prosecution proceedings would have been brought against him.
CCRC: https://is.gd/KJCY2U
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Empty Evacuation Orders in Gaza
With its bombardment of Gaza continuing, the Israeli military has been issuing warnings for people in south Gaza to evacuate. Via social media and other means, they’ve sent QR codes: just use your phone to click and download a map to know where to go to be safe.
Those who think this sounds reasonable – a modern way to protect civilians in war – are ignoring reality on at least three levels.
First, the Israeli military has been cutting power to Gaza, making it hard to keep phones charged to access that map. They’ve also been cutting communications, so even if you find a charge, you may not get a signal.
Second, the maps the Israeli military has issued have been full of errors. They’ve had to correct them multiple times, leading to confusion among those desperate to find safety.
Third, and most critically, there is no safe place to flee to. It’s not like the Israeli military is promising not to bomb certain places. They are sending people to smaller and ever more crowded areas without any guarantees of protection.
As Human Rights Watch has said previously, under international humanitarian law – the “laws of war” – warring parties have an obligation to protect civilians, and they’re encouraged to warn them, where such warnings can help keep civilians safe. But given all three points above, these current warnings would seem to fail that basic test and for that reason, they’re not effective.
What’s more, people who cannot or do not evacuate an area still have protections under the laws of war against indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks. No military force in any conflict can just make an announcement and then bomb an area with no regard for civilians there – no matter how many warnings it gives and no matter in what form, QR codes or otherwise.
Source: Human Rights Watch
Neglect, Deflect, Scapegoat Those You’ve Exploited: That’s What Passes for UK Immigration Policy
The frenzied debate about ‘Record Levels’ of net migration ignores the true cause of it all
The headline, now increasing in pitch, capital letters and exclamation marks, is that net migration is off the charts. It is soaring. It is at an all-time high. So high that we ask, how did it come to this? The answer is, it came to this predictably and, in fact, inevitably. The way immigration numbers are reported is a sort of classification error, one forced by the overriding, unquestioned presumption that immigration is bad, that it must come down, and that politicians are in some duel with “hordes” of immigrants who are making their way into the country, managing somehow to vanquish one of the harshest immigration systems in the world.
More accurate headlines might be “UK skilled worker shortage intensifies”, “Loss of European Union research funding renders British universities increasingly dependent on overseas students”, “Business leaders call for expansion of shortage occupations due to post-Brexit recruitment challenges”, or “Funding cuts to nurse training result in staffing crisis”. Because these apparently vexingly high numbers are, to a large extent, the outcome of economic and political decisions that mean we invite immigrants to fill labour gaps that policymakers either did not anticipate, or ignored warnings about.
Read more: Nesrine Malik, Guardian, https://is.gd/fTbFHQ
Self-Harm Incident Nearly Every Day in UK Immigration Detention
There has been a self-harm incident or suicide attempt requiring medical treatment almost every day on average over the last nearly six years across the Home Office’s largest immigration detention centres, the Guardian has learned.
Data obtained from the Home Office by the Scottish Refugee Council using freedom of information laws and shared with the Guardian provides information about self-harm incidents requiring medical treatment over the period from January 2018 until 30 September this year.
Over this period of 2,099 days there were 1,743 self-harm and suicide attempts so serious that they required medical treatment across four immigration removal centres: Brook House and Tinsley House near Gatwick airport, Heathrow, and Yarl’s Wood in Bedfordshire.
Read more: Diane Taylor, Guardian, https://is.gd/pj4NNQ
Israeli Officials Knew of October 7 Attack a Year Ago But Didn’t Act
For over a year, Israeli officials had detailed knowledge of the plan for the October 7 attack by Hamas forces — but, despite knowing about the devastation the incursion would cause, Israeli leaders declined to act, a new bombshell New York Times investigation reveals.
Israeli officials have exploited the attack to “justify” their genocide in Gaza.
Documents, emails and interviews conducted by The Times show that Israeli military and intelligence officials possessed a 40-page blueprint for the attack. The document laid out specific plans for the attack, detailing which of Israel’s security measures Hamas forces planned to take out, including security cameras and automated machine guns around the border, and the points of the border wall Israel erected to sanction off Gaza that Hamas fighters would breach.
As the investigation finds, Hamas forces carried out the plan for what Israeli officials code-named “Jericho Wall” with “shocking precision.” It would result in the deadliest day for Israelis in the country’s history, with 1,200 people killed — and then, a genocide in Gaza that has killed over 15,000 Palestinians so far, which Israel has used the October 7 raid to justify at length.
Despite the document being circulated widely among Israeli officials and the plan’s clear potential for mass civilian deaths, leaders ultimately decided to brush the document aside. According to The Times, they deemed the plan too ambitious for Hamas forces to carry out.
Israeli officials agree in private that, if they had taken the plan seriously, they could have reduced the severity of the death toll or even prevented it altogether, the investigation found. Due in part to the U.S.’s unbending support, Israel has one of the most powerful militaries in the world.
Read more: Sharon Zhang , Truthout, https://is.gd/GxWDns
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