Newsroom

With a global staff of more than 1,500 worldwide, the Jesuit Refugee Service is a key source for journalists who seek information on the latest issues on forced displacement in the world. Journalists visiting this site have access to press releases, latest news affecting refugees and other forcibly displaced persons, updates from JRS projects and activities, speeches, special features and more.

JRS programmes are implemented through more than 50 country offices and a large network of partners, and annually benefit more than 500,000 people worldwide.

Our global network of regional communications officers, based throughout Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America, can provide updates in emergencies and access to field staff.

Regional staff can lend insight into JRS programmes and advocacy priorities and provide detailed information on current global crises.

For media inquiries or to arrange an interview, please contact our communications staff.

For all other inquiries, please call +39 06 689 77465

Ukraine: Iraqi children granted full citizenship
Kiev, 26 January 2012 – Two young Iraqi girls were granted full citizenship status in Ukraine, in what JRS country director David Nazar SJ called a "precedent setting case".
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International: JRS publishes Strategic Framework 2012-2015
Rome, 25 January 2012 – After extensive consultation throughout last year, today the Jesuit Refugee Service published its Strategic Framework for 2012-2015, outlining broad goals, values, strategies and expected outcomes for the next four years. The 24-page booklet seeks to provide an inspirational framework and set overarching strategies for all ten JRS regions to meet the challenges of working with refugees on the edges of humanity.
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Haiti: two years on, from mourning to anger
Port-au-Prince, 17 January 2012 – Two years after the earthquake that devastated Haiti on 12 January 2010 and cost the lives of more than 250,000 persons, civil society groups including JRS Haiti, have participated in public demonstrations expressing their dissatisfaction with their living conditions and the current situation in the country.
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Philippines: flash flood kills thousands
Mindanao, 28 December 2011 – More than 380,000 people are suffering from floods wrought by storm 'Sendong' in the southeast of the Philippines. At least a thousand have died with another thousand still missing.
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International: progress made at landmine conference, but casualty toll continues to rise
Phnom Penh, 9 December 2011 – Despite the positive commitments by states at the Eleventh Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty to eradicate landmines, the Jesuit Refugee Service has expressed concerns over worrying setbacks and the rising numbers of casualties in landmine-related incidents.
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Asia Pacific: NGOs urge governments to end migration detention of children
Kuala Lumpur, 26 November 2011 – States in Asia Pacific are increasingly using detention as a first resort to manage irregular migration, even where there are no valid security concerns, according to a statement of 50 NGOs from 18 countries in a meeting held in Malaysia on Thursday and Friday.
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Democratic Republic of Congo: new risks for internally displaced persons in North Kivu
Goma, 18 November 2011 – Village leaders in the eastern Congolese village of Mweso are trying to scare internally displaced persons (IDPs) into leaving camps as an attempt to expropriate land, according to JRS Great Lakes.
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Thailand: locals rush to the aid of those in need of assistance
Bangkok, 16 November 2011 – Many residents in the Thai capital this week have turned a crisis into an opportunity to help others. In the rush to deliver assistance and relief goods, these small acts of kindness and heroism often go unacknowledged. JRS has been fortunate to meet some of these unsung heroes and hear their stories.
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Tunisia: coping with uncertain futures in the camp
Rome, 16 November 2011– On a visit to Rome, Elisabeth Wonok, of the Little Sisters of Jesus, shared her concern over the fate of persons not officially recognised as refugees living in the Choucha camp in Tunisia on the border with Libya.
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Cambodia: unexploded devices found near school
Battambang (Cambodia), 9 November 2011 – More than 100 unexploded devices have been found near a small school in northwestern Cambodia.
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Rwanda: cutting food assistance to refugees could severely affect JRS projects
Bujumbura, 28 October 2011 – JRS has welcomed reports that the UN World Food Programme (WFP) has reversed cuts to the food rations for Congolese refugees as an important step towards the protection of basic human rights and the maintenance of public order in Kiziba and Gihembe camps.
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Burundi: last refugees to repatriate from Tanzania
Bujumbura, 28 October 2011 –The last of more than 500,000 refugees who fled violent civil war in Burundi in the 1990s will return home, bringing the massive repatriation process to an end.
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Papua New Guinea: bishop urges NGOs to highlight the plight of West Papuan refugees
Rome, 27 October 2011 – The Bishop of the Daru Kiunga Catholic diocese, Gilles Cote SMM, urged civil society groups to step up pressure on the Papua New Guinean government to improve the lives of West Papuan refugees and the local population living in the sparely populated southern western region bordering Indonesia.
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Uganda: Burundian refugees concerned for their safety
Kampala, 21 October 2011 – Refugees from Burundi are concerned for their safety, citing the effects of increasing violence and corruption at home and a challenging asylum process in Uganda as the main sources of insecurity in their lives.
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Dominican Republic: conference on statelessness and the right to nationality
Washington DC 15 October 2011 — As rising numbers of Dominican citizens of Haitian descent in the Dominican Republic are having their nationality revoked by the Dominican government, an international coalition of leading human rights groups announced plans today to examine the legality of those actions and the impacts on people who have lost their nationality rights, in a one-day conference in Washington DC and a surrounding week of dialogue with Dominican advocates, US administration, Congress and other policymakers.
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International: JRS shares UN concerns regarding increasing xenophobia
Rome, 8 October 2011 – The Jesuit Refugee Service welcomed the recent statements made by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Antonio Guterres in his address at the annual Executive Committee meeting on 3 October 2011. According to Mr Guterres, the increasingly complex challenges facing refugees, and stateless and internally displaced persons, require the international community to take a collective action to find durable solution.
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South Sudan: education as a tool of development and peace
Lobone, 15 September 2011 – Education is an essential tool to eradicate poverty, reduce child mortality, and curb population growth, said JRS South Sudan Project Director in Lobone, Lam Leone Ferem, speaking on 8 September, the forty-fifth anniversary of International Literacy Day.
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Europe: governments failed to protect forced migrants, say human rights groups
Brussels, 15 September 2011 – The Jesuit Refugee Service has urged EU states to prioritise the protection of human rights and life over border security, in response to findings of the latest Amnesty International report, The Battle for Libya: Killings, Disappearances and Torture.
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Democratic Republic of Congo: poor conditions in makeshift camps leave IDPs vulnerable
Masisi, 9 September 2011 – Internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the seven unofficial camps in the Masisi district of North Kivu province in eastern Congo are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance, according to the Jesuit Refugee Service.
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Brazil: Haitian migrants, stranded and unable to move on
Bogotá, 30 August 2011 – The impact of the January-2010 earthquake, cholera epidemics, subhuman living conditions in camps for displaced persons and disillusionment with the failure to stabilise the country are some of the many reasons why Haitians are fleeing in substantial numbers.
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Australia: Tampa 10 years on, refugees considered worse than criminals
Bangkok, 28 August 2011 – The key consequence of the Tampa crisis was a "fundamental shift" in the way refugees were regarded in Australian society, said Jesuit Refugee Service Australia Director, Aloysious Mowe SJ.
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Malta: conditions in detention centre require attention
Valletta, 18 August 2011 – The director of the Jesuit Refugee Service Malta, Joseph Cassar SJ, has expressed sadness and regret at the violence of protests by asylum seekers in detention at Safi barracks, but said living conditions inside the centre needed improvement.
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Ethiopia: JRS to help Somali refugee children
Nairobi/Dollo Ado, 16 August 2011 – JRS Eastern Africa Director, Frido Pflueger SJ, just came back from a visit to the Dollo Ado refugee camps in south-east Ethiopia. In an interview he describes his impressions of the situation on the ground and explains how JRS will become involved.
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Eastern Africa: states pledge immediate assistance for Somali crisis
Nairobi, 1 August 2011 – The UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) called on states to contribute 300 million US dollars for emergency relief over the next three months and a further 1.6 billion US dollars over the next 12 month.
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Malta: fundraising for Eritrean's family
Valletta, 30 July 2011 – The Jesuit Refugee Service and the Eritrean community in Malta and friends of Ashih Tekleab Haile, the Eritrean who tragically lost his life while heroically saving the life of another, are raising funds to help his family through this difficult time.
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