March 12, 2012
Erin Weir
Africa, DR Congo, Protection & Security
Senior Advocate Peter Orr and I are in North Kivu Province, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. This is my fifth visit to the area since I began working for Refugees International in 2007, and in that time there have been a lot of changes.
There have been shifting conflict dynamics and alliances amongst armed groups and the government, new aid efforts to respond better to humanitarian needs, and innovations in the way UN peacekeepers interact with communities to keep people safe.
January 23, 2012
Erin Weir
Africa, Kenya, Somalia, Protection & Security
It was six months ago that famine was declared in Somalia. The steady
flow of refugees already fleeing conflict was joined by a torrent of new
asylum seekers – people fleeing because of hunger and looking for a
more hopeful place in which to re-build their lives. During the past
six months, hundreds of thousands of people made their way to
neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia, and aid organizations scrambled to ramp
up their operations in order to serve these new arrivals.
July 21, 2011
Erin Weir
Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Neglected Crises, Protection & Security
Do you ever feel like you are caught in a bad cycle of déjà vu?
Since June 5th the Nuba people in Sudan’s Southern Kordofan state have endured attacks on their homes, executions, arbitrary detention, and – perhaps most terrifying of all – indiscriminate bombing from the air. Roughly 73,000 people have been displaced at the hands of their own government.
In a display that surprises no one, the Government of Sudan is once again mounting a vicious offensive against an ethnic minority inside their own borders.
July 07, 2011
Erin Weir
Africa, South Sudan, Sudan
In just two short days southern Sudan separates from the north. I wasn’t there when they signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005, but I suspect that the southern Sudanese in the room imagined this day a little bit differently.
May 13, 2011
Erin Weir
Africa, DR Congo, Protection & Security
In peacekeeping the attention (and pressure) tends to be focused on the military part of the mission, the military “blue helmets” patrolling villages and deterring physical attacks. People often forget that peacekeeping missions also include a huge range of civilian staff who work on activities including monitoring human rights abuses, engaging with communities and fostering reconciliation, analyzing political developments, promoting peace processes, and civilian policing. The list goes on.
