industryterm:food security

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►https://seenthis.net/messages/772984

Gen Khalifa Haftar’s forces close in on Tripoli

UN’s Guterres ‘deeply concerned’ after meeting with Libyan National Army leader.

Dozens of migrants and refugees in a Tripoli detention centre were dressed in old military uniforms and ordered to begin packing weapons this week, as rival forces began to march on the Libyan capital.

▻https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/africa/gen-khalifa-haftar-s-forces-close-in-on-tripoli-1.3851141

Libia, #Qasr_Bin_Ghashir: necessaria l’urgente evacuazione! 10 aprile

Il centro di detenzione di Qasr Bin Ghashir, Tripoli, Libia, al quinto giorno senza acqua e senza cibo.
500 persone prese sulla linea del fronte, abbandonate all’interno dalle milizie in fuga.

▻https://vimeo.com/329685644

’We are in a fire’: Libya’s detained refugees trapped by conflict

Detainees at detention centre on the outskirts of Tripoli live in fear amid intense clashes for control of the capital.

Refugees and migrants trapped on the front line of fierce fighting in Libya’s capital, Tripoli, are pleading to be rescued from the war-torn country while being “surrounded by heavy weapons and militants”.

Hit by food and water shortages, detainees at the #Qasr_bin_Ghashir detention centre on the southern outskirts of Tripoli, told Al Jazeera they were “abandoned” on Saturday by fleeing guards, who allegedly told the estimated 728 people being held at the facility to fend for themselves.

The refugees and migrants used hidden phones to communicate and requested that their names not be published.

“[There are] no words to describe the fear of the women and children,” an Eritrean male detainee said on Saturday.

“We are afraid of [the] noise... fired from the air and the weapons. I feel that we are abandoned to our fate.”
Fighting rages on Tripoli outskirts

Tripoli’s southern outskirts have been engulfed by fighting since renegade General Khalifa Haftar’s eastern forces launched an assault on the capital earlier this month in a bid to wrestle control of the city from Libya’s internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA).

The showdown threatens to further destabilise war-wracked Libya, which splintered into a patchwork of rival power bases following the overthrow of former leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

At least 121 people have been killed and 561 wounded since Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) started its offensive on April 4, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

https://i.imgur.com/0hjVVhT.png

Both sides have repeatedly carried out air raids and accuse each other of targeting civilians.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), for its part, estimates more than 15,000 people have been displaced so far, with a “significant number” of others stuck in live conflict zones.

Amid the fighting, refugees and migrants locked up in detention centres throughout the capital, many of whom fled war and persecution in countries including Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan, are warning that their lives are at risk.

“We find ourselves in a fire,” a 15-year-old detainee at Qasr bin Ghashir told Al Jazeera.
Electricity outage, water shortages

Others held at the centre described the abject conditions they were subject to, including a week-long stint without electricity and working water pumps.

One detainee in her 30s, who alleged the centre’s manager assaulted her, also said they had gone more than a week until Saturday with “no food, [and] no water”, adding the situation “was not good” and saying women are particularly vulnerable now.

This is the third time since August that detainees in Qasr bin Ghashir have been in the middle of clashes, she said.

Elsewhere in the capital, refugees and migrants held at the #Abu_Salim detention centre also said they could “hear the noise of weapons” and needed protection.

“At this time, we want quick evacuation,” said one detainee at Abu Salim, which sits about 20km north of Qasr bin Ghashir.

“We’ve stayed years with much torture and suffering, we don’t have any resistance for anything. We are (under) deep pressure and stressed … People are very angry and afraid.”
’Take us from Libya, please’

Tripoli’s detention centres are formally under the control of the GNA’s Department for Combatting Illegal Migration (DCIM), though many are actually run by militias.

The majority of the approximately 6,000 people held in the facilities were intercepted on the Mediterranean Sea and brought back to the North African country after trying to reach Europe as part of a two-year agreement under which which the European Union supports the Libyan coastguard with funds, ships and training, in return for carrying out interceptions and rescues.

In a statement to Al Jazeera, an EU spokesperson said the bloc’s authorities were “closely monitoring the situation in Libya” from a “political, security and humanitarian point of view” though they could not comment on Qasr bin Ghashir specifically.

DCIM, for its part, did not respond to a request for comment.

The UN, however, continues to reiterate that Libya is not a safe country for refugees and migrants to return.

Amid the ongoing conflict, the organisation’s human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, warned last week of the need to “ensure protection of extremely vulnerable civilians”, including refugees and migrants who may be living “under significant peril”.

Bachelet also called for authorities to ensure that prisons and detention centres are not abandoned, and for all parties to guarantee that the treatment of detainees is in line with international law.

In an apparent move to safeguard the refugees and migrants being held near the capital, Libyan authorities attempted last week to move detainees at Qasr bin Ghashir to another detention centre in #Zintan, nearly 170km southwest of Tripoli.

But those being held in Qasr bin Ghashir refused to leave, arguing the solution is not a move elsewhere in Libya but rather a rescue from the country altogether.

“All Libya [is a] war zone,” an Eritrean detainee told Al Jazeera.

“Take us from Libya, please. Where is humanity and where is human rights,” the detainee asked.

▻https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/04/fire-libya-detained-refugees-trapped-conflict-190414150247858.html

700+ refugees & migrants - including more than 150 women & children - are trapped in a detention centre on the front lines, amid renewed clashes in Tripoli. The below photos, taken today, show where a jet was downed right beside them.

https://i.imgur.com/ndB8TsL.png https://i.imgur.com/vUSTNpx.png

ESCLUSIVO TPI: “Senza cibo né acqua, pestati a sangue dai soldati”: la guerra in Libia vista dai migranti rinchiusi nei centri di detenzione

“I rifugiati detenuti in Libia stanno subendo le più drammatiche conseguenze della guerra civile esplosa nel paese”.

È la denuncia a TPI di Giulia Tranchina, avvocato che, a Londra, si occupa di rifugiati per lo studio legale Wilson Solicitor.

Tranchina è in contatto con i migranti rinchiusi nei centri di detenzione libici e, da tempo, denuncia abusi e torture perpetrate ai loro danni.

L’esplosione della guerra ha reso le condizioni di vita delle migliaia di rifugiati presenti nei centri governativi ancora più disumane.

La gestione dei centri è stata bocciata anche dagli organismi internazionali in diversi rapporti, ignorati dai governi europei e anche da quello italiano, rapporti dove si evidenzia la violazione sistematica delle convenzioni internazionali, le condizioni sanitarie agghiaccianti e continue torture.

▻https://www.tpi.it/2019/04/13/guerra-libia-migranti-centri-di-detenzione
#guerre_civile

The humanitarian fallout from Libya’s newest war

The Libyan capital of Tripoli is shuddering under an offensive by forces loyal to strongman Khalifa Haftar, with the city’s already precarious basic services in danger of breaking down completely and aid agencies struggling to cope with a growing emergency.

In the worst and most sustained fighting the country has seen since the 2011 uprising that ousted Muammar Gaddafi, the Haftar-led Libyan National Army, or LNA, surged into the city – controlled by the UN-backed Government of National Accord, or GNA – on 4 April.

Fighting continues across a string of southern suburbs, with airstrikes and rocket and artillery fire from both sides hammering front lines and civilians alike.

“It is terrible; they use big guns at night, the children can’t sleep,” said one resident of the capital, who declined to give her name for publication. “The shots land everywhere.”

The violence has displaced thousands of people and trapped hundreds of migrants and refugees in detention centres. Some analysts also think it has wrecked years of diplomacy, including attempts by the UN to try to build political consensus in Libya, where various militias support the two major rivals for power: the Tripoli-based GNA and the Haftar-backed House of Representatives, based in the eastern city of Tobruk.

“Detained migrants and refugees, including women and children, are particularly vulnerable.”

“Pandora’s box has been opened,” said Jalel Harchaoui, a research fellow at Clingendael Institute think tank in The Hague. “The military operation [to capture Tripoli] has inflicted irreversible damage upon a modus vivendi and a large set of political dialogues that has required four years of diplomatic work.”
Civilians in the line of fire

Media reports and eyewitnesses in the city said residents face agonising decisions about when to go out, and risk the indiscriminate fire, in search of food and other essentials from the few shops that are open.

One resident said those in Tripoli face the dilemma of whether to stay in their homes or leave, with no clear idea of what part of the city will be targeted next.

The fighting is reportedly most intense in the southern suburbs, which until two weeks ago included some of the most tranquil and luxurious homes in the city. Now these districts are a rubble-strewn battleground, made worse by the ever-changing positions of LNA forces and militias that support the GNA.

This battle comes to a city already struggling with chaos and militia violence, with residents having known little peace since the NATO-backed revolt eight years ago.

“Since 2011, Libyans have faced one issue after another: shortages of cooking gas, electricity, water, lack of medicines, infrastructure in ruin and neglect,” said one woman who lives in an eastern suburb of Tripoli. “Little is seen at community level, where money disappears into pockets [of officials]. Hospitals are unsanitary and barely function. Education is a shambles of poor schools and stressed teachers.”
Aid agencies scrambling

Only a handful of aid agencies have a presence in Tripoli, where local services are now badly stretched.

The World Health Organisation reported on 14 April that the death toll was 147 and 614 people had been wounded, cautioning that the latter figure may be higher as some overworked hospitals have stopped counting the numbers treated.

“We are still working on keeping the medical supplies going,” a WHO spokesperson said. “We are sending out additional surgical staff to support hospitals coping with large caseloads of wounded, for example anaesthetists.”

The UN’s emergency coordination body, OCHA, said that 16,000 people had been forced to flee by the fighting, 2,000 on 13 April alone when fighting intensified across the front line with a series of eight airstrikes. OCHA says the past few years of conflict have left at least 823,000 people, including 248,000 children, “in dire need of humanitarian assistance”.

UNICEF appealed for $4.7 million to provide emergency assistance to the half a million children and their families it estimates live in and around Tripoli.
Migrants and refugees

Some of the worst off are more than 1,500 migrants trapped in a string of detention centres in the capital and nearby. The UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, said over the weekend it was trying to organise the evacuation of refugees from a migrant camp close to the front lines. “We are in contact with refugees in Qaser Ben Gashir and so far they remain safe from information received,” the agency said in a tweet.

At least one media report said migrants and refugees at the centre felt they had been abandoned and feared for their lives.

UNHCR estimates there are some 670,000 migrants and refugees in Libya, including more than 6,000 in detention centres.

In its appeal, UNICEF said it was alarmed by reports that some migrant detention centres have been all but abandoned, with the migrants unable to get food and water. “The breakdown in the food supply line has resulted in a deterioration of the food security in detention centres,” the agency said. “Detained migrants and refugees, including women and children, are particularly vulnerable, especially those in detention centres located in the vicinity of the fighting.”

Many migrants continue to hope to find a boat to Europe, but that task has been made harder by the EU’s March decision to scale down the rescue part of Operation Sophia, its Mediterranean anti-smuggling mission.

“The breakdown in the food supply line has resulted in a deterioration of the food security in detention centres.”

Search-and-rescue missions run by nongovernmental organisations have had to slow down and sometimes shutter their operations as European governments refuse them permission to dock. On Monday, Malta said it would not allow the crew of a ship that had been carrying 64 people rescued off the coast of Libya to disembark on its shores. The ship was stranded for two weeks as European governments argued over what to do with the migrants, who will now be split between four countries.

Eugenio Cusumano, an international security expert specialising in migration research at Lieden University in the Netherlands, said a new surge of migrants and refugees may now be heading across the sea in a desperate attempt to escape the fighting. He said they will find few rescue craft, adding: “If the situation in Libya deteriorates there will be a need for offshore patrol assets.”
Failed diplomacy

Haftar’s LNA says its objective is to liberate the city from militia control, while the GNA has accused its rival of war crimes and called for prosecutions.

International diplomatic efforts to end the fighting appear to have floundered. Haftar launched his offensive on the day that UN Secretary-General António Guterres was visiting Tripoli – a visit designed to bolster long-delayed, UN-chaired talks with the various parties in the country, which were due to be held this week.

The UN had hoped the discussions, known as the National Conference, might pave the way for elections later this year, but they ended up being cancelled due to the upsurge in fighting.

Guterres tried to de-escalate the situation by holding emergency talks with the GNA in Tripoli and flying east to see Haftar in Benghazi. But as foreign powers reportedly line up behind different sides, his calls for a ceasefire – along with condemnation from the UN Security Council and the EU – have so far been rebuffed.

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“They (tell) migrants that if you know how to shoot a gun we will make you stay with us.”

https://i.imgur.com/A4cIglu.jpg

Detained refugees in Libya moved to safety in second UNHCR relocation

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, today relocated another 150 refugees who were detained in the #Abu_Selim detention centre in south Tripoli to UNHCR’s #Gathering_and_Departure_Facility (#GDF) in the centre of Libya’s capital, safe from hostilities.

The Abu Selim detention centre is one of several in Libya that has been impacted by hostilities since clashes erupted in the capital almost a fortnight ago.

Refugees at the centre told UNHCR that they were petrified and traumatised by the fighting, fearing for their lives.

UNHCR staff who were present and organizing the relocation today reported that clashes were around 10 kilometres away from the centre and were clearly audible.

While UNHCR intended to relocate more refugees, due to a rapid escalation of fighting in the area this was not possible. UNHCR hopes to resume this life-saving effort as soon as conditions on the ground allow.

“It is a race against time to move people out of harm’s way. Conflict and deteriorating security conditions hamper how much we can do,” said UNHCR’s Assistant Chief of Mission in Libya, Lucie Gagne.

“We urgently need solutions for people trapped in Libya, including humanitarian evacuations to transfer those most vulnerable out of the country.”

Refugees who were relocated today were among those most vulnerable and in need and included women and children. The relocation was conducted with the support of UNHCR’s partner, International Medical Corps and the Libyan Ministry of Interior.

This relocation is the second UNHCR-organized transfer since the recent escalation of the conflict in Libya.

Last week UNHCR relocated more than 150 refugees from the Ain Zara detention centre also in south Tripoli to the GDF, bringing the total number of refugees currently hosted at the GDF to more than 400.

After today’s relocation, there remain more than 2,700 refugees and migrants detained and trapped in areas where clashes are ongoing. In addition to those remaining at Abu Selim, other detention centres impacted and in proximity to hostilities include the Qasr Bin Ghasheer, Al Sabaa and Tajoura centres.

Current conditions in the country continue to underscore the fact that Libya is a dangerous place for refugees and migrants, and that those rescued and intercepted at sea should not be returned there. UNHCR has repeatedly called for an end to detention for refugees and migrants.

https://www.unhcr.org/thumb1/5cb0baad4.jpg

▻https://www.unhcr.org/news/press/2019/4/5cb60a984/detained-refugees-libya-moved-safety-second-unhcr-relocation.html

Libya’s migrants under threat as battle for Tripoli sets in

Migrants locked in detention camps in Tripoli face increasing danger as the prospect of a drawn-out siege looms. Inconsistent responses from Europe to the crisis have left them little hope.

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▻https://www.dw.com/en/libyas-migrants-under-threat-as-battle-for-tripoli-sets-in/a-48351094

Libye : l’ONU a évacué 150 réfugiés supplémentaires d’un camp de détention

L’ONU a annoncé mardi avoir évacué 150 réfugiés supplémentaires d’une centre de détention à Tripoli touché par des combats, ajoutant ne pas avoir été en mesure d’en déplacer d’autres en raison de l’intensification des affrontements.

La Haut-commissariat aux réfugiés (HCR) a précisé avoir évacué ces réfugiés, parmi lesquels des femmes et des enfants, du centre de détention Abou Sélim, dans le sud de la capitale libyenne, vers son Centre de rassemblement et de départ dans le centre-ville.

Cette opération a été effectuée au milieu de violents combats entre les forces du maréchal Khalifa Haftar et celles du Gouvernement d’union nationale (GNA) libyen.

« C’est une course contre la montre pour mettre les gens à l’abri », a déclaré la cheffe adjointe de la mission du HCR en Libye, Lucie Gagne, dans un communiqué. « Le conflit et la détérioration des conditions de sécurité entravent nos capacités », a-t-elle regretté.

Au moins 174 personnes ont été tuées et 758 autres blessés dans la bataille pour le contrôle de Tripoli, a annoncé mardi l’Organisation mondiale de la Santé (OMS).

Abu Sélim est l’un des centres de détention qui ont été touchés par les combats. Le HCR, qui avait déjà évacué la semaine dernière plus de 150 migrants de centre de détention d’Ain Zara, a indiqué qu’il voulait en évacuer d’autres mardi mais qu’il ne n’avait pu le faire en raison d’une aggravation rapide des combats dans cette zone.

Les réfugiés évacués mardi étaient « traumatisés » par les combats, a rapporté le HCR, ajoutant que des combats avaient lieu à seulement une dizaine de km.

« Il nous faut d’urgence des solutions pour les gens piégés en Libye, y compris des évacuations humanitaires pour transférer les plus vulnérables hors du pays », a déclaré Mme Gagne.

Selon le HCR, plus de 400 personnes se trouvent désormais dans son centre de rassemblement et de départ, mais plus de 2.700 réfugiés sont encore détenus et bloqués dans des zones de combats.

La Libye « est un endroit dangereux pour les réfugiés et les migrants », a souligné le HCR. « Ceux qui sont secourus et interceptés en mer ne devraient pas être renvoyés là-bas ».

▻https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1166761/libye-lonu-a-evacue-150-refugies-supplementaires-dun-camp-de-detentio

Libya: Detained refugees shot as clashes near Tripoli continue

Refugees and migrants request immediate medical assistance as several people are reportedly wounded by gunfire.

https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2019/4/7/5e53df016ee247c6a4ab9576b511fea6_18.jpg

Footage shows refugees hiding as Libyan militia attack detention centre

At least two people reportedly killed in shooting at Qasr bin Ghashir facility near Tripoli.

Young refugees held in a detention centre in Libya have described being shot at indiscriminately by militias advancing on Tripoli, in an attack that reportedly left at least two people dead and up to 20 injured.

Phone footage smuggled out of the camp and passed to the Guardian highlights the deepening humanitarian crisis in the centres set up to prevent refugees and migrants from making the sea crossing from the north African coast to Europe.

The footage shows people cowering in terror in the corners of a hangar while gunshots can be heard and others who appear to have been wounded lying on makeshift stretchers.

The shooting on Tuesday at the Qasr bin Ghashir detention centre, 12 miles (20km) south of Tripoli, is thought to be the first time a militia has raided such a building and opened fire.

Witnesses said men, women and children were praying together when soldiers they believe to be part of the forces of the military strongman Khalifa Haftar, which are advancing on the Libyan capital to try to bring down the UN-backed government, stormed into the detention centre and demanded people hand over their phones.

When the occupants refused, the soldiers began shooting, according to the accounts. Phones are the only link to the outside world for many in the detention centres.

Amnesty International has called for a war crimes investigation into the incident. “This incident demonstrates the urgent need for all refugees and migrants to be immediately released from these horrific detention centres,” said the organisation’s spokeswoman, Magdalena Mughrabi.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said a review of the video evidence by its medical doctors had concluded the injuries were consistent with gunshot wounds. “These observations are further supported by numerous accounts from refugees and migrants who witnessed the event and reported being brutally and indiscriminately attacked with the use of firearms,” a statement said.

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said it evacuated 325 people from the detention centre after the incident. A statement suggested guns were fired into air and 12 people “endured physical attacks” that required hospital treatment, but none sustained bullet wounds.

“The dangers for refugees and migrants in Tripoli have never been greater than they are at present,” said Matthew Brook, the refugee agency’s deputy mission chief in Libya. “It is vital that refugees in danger can be released and evacuated to safety.”

The Guardian has previously revealed there is a network of 26 Libyan detention centres where an estimated 6,000 refugees are held. Children have described being starved, beaten and abused by Libyan police and camp guards. The UK contributes funding to humanitarian assistance provided in the centres by NGOs and the International Organization for Migration.

Qasr bin Ghashir is on the frontline of the escalating battle in Libya between rival military forces. Child refugees in the camp started sending SOS messages earlier this month, saying: “The war is started. We are in a bad situation.”

In WhatsApp messages sent to the Guardian on Tuesday, some of the child refugees said: “Until now, no anyone came here to help us. Not any organisations. Please, please, please, a lot of blood going out from people. Please, we are in dangerous conditions, please world, please, we are in danger.”

Many of the children and young people in the detention centres have fled persecution in Eritrea and cannot return. Many have also tried to cross the Mediterranean to reach Italy, but have been pushed back by the Libyan coastguard, which receives EU funding.

Giulia Tranchina, an immigration solicitor in London, has been raising the alarm for months about the plight of refugees in the centres. “I have been in touch with seven refugees in Qasr Bin Gashir since last September,. Many are sick and starving,” she said.

“All of them tried to escape across the Mediterranean to Italy, but were pushed back to the detention centre by the Libyan coastguard. Some were previously imprisoned by traffickers in Libya for one to two years. Many have been recognised by UNHCR as genuine refugees.”

Tranchina took a statement from a man who escaped from the centre after the militia started shooting. “We were praying in the hangar. The women joined us for prayer. The guards came in and told us to hand over our phones,” he said.

“When we refused, they started shooting. I saw gunshot wounds to the head and neck, I think that without immediate medical treatment, those people would die.

“I’m now in a corrugated iron shack in Tripoli with a few others who escaped, including three women with young children. Many were left behind and we have heard that they have been locked in.”

A UK government spokesperson said: “We are deeply concerned by reports of violence at the Qasr Ben Ghashir detention centre, and call on all parties to allow civilians, including refugees and migrants, to be evacuated to safety.”

• Amnesty International, Médecins Sans Frontières and other NGOs are suing the French government to stop the donation of six boats to Libya’s navy, saying they will be used to send migrants back to detention centres. EU support to the Libyan coastguard, which is part of the navy, has enabled it to intercept migrants and asylum seekers bound for Europe. The legal action seeks a suspension on the boat donation, saying it violates an EU embargo on the supply of military equipment to Libya.

►https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/25/libya-detention-centre-attack-footage-refugees-hiding-shooting

From Bad to Worse for Migrants Trapped in Detention in Libya

Footage (►https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/25/libya-detention-centre-attack-footage-refugees-hiding-shooting) revealed to the Guardian shows the panic of migrants and refugees trapped in the detention facility Qasr bin Ghashir close to Tripoli under indiscriminate fire from advancing militia. According to the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR more than 3,300 people trapped in detention centres close to the escalating fighting are at risk and the agency is working to evacuate migrants from the “immediate danger”.

Fighting is intensifying between Libyan National Army (LNA) loyal to Khalifa Haftar and the UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) around the capital Tripoli. There have been reports on deaths and forced enlistment among migrants and refugees trapped in detention centres, which are overseen by the Libyan Department for Combating Illegal Migration but often run by militias.

Amid the intense fighting the EU-backed Libyan coastguard continues to intercept and return people trying to cross the Mediteranean. According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) 113 people were returned to the Western part of the country this week. In a Tweet the UN Agency states: “we reiterate that Libya is not a safe port and that arbitrary detention must end.”

Former UNHCR official, Jeff Crisp, calls it: “…extraordinary that the UN has not made a direct appeal to the EU to suspend the support it is giving to the Libyan coastguard”, and further states that: “Europe has the option of doing nothing and that is what it will most likely do.”

UNHCR has evacuated 500 people to the Agencies Gathering and Departure Facility in Tripoli and an additional 163 to the Emergency Transit Mechanism in Niger. However, with both mechanisms “approaching full capacity” the Agency urges direct evacuations out of Libya. On April 29, 146 refugees were evacuated from Libya to Italy in a joint operation between UNHCR and Italian and Libyan authorities.

▻https://www.ecre.org/from-bad-to-worse-for-migrants-trapped-in-detention-in-libya

Libia, la denuncia di Msf: «Tremila migranti bloccati vicino ai combattimenti, devono essere evacuati»

A due mesi dall’inizio dei combattimenti tra i militari del generale Khalifa Haftar e le milizie fedeli al governo di Tripoli di Fayez al-Sarraj, i capimissione di Medici Senza Frontiere per la Libia hanno incontrato la stampa a Roma per fare il punto della situazione. «I combattimenti hanno interessato centomila persone, di queste tremila sono migranti e rifugiati bloccati nei centri di detenzione che sorgono nelle aree del conflitto - ha spiegato Sam Turner -. Per questo chiediamo la loro immediata evacuazione. Solo portandoli via da quelle aree si possono salvare delle vite».

▻https://video.repubblica.it/dossier/migranti-2019/libia-la-denuncia-di-msf-tremila-migranti-bloccati-vicino-ai-combattimenti-devono-essere-evacuati/336337/336934?ref=twhv

Et #travail_forcé dans les centres de détention libyens :
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/785516

Libia, attacco aereo al centro migranti. 60 morti. Salvini: «E’ un crimine di Haftar, il mondo deve reagire»

Il bombardamento è stato effettuato dalle forze del generale Khalifa Haftar, sostenute dalla Francia e dagli Emirati. Per l’inviato Onu si tratta di crimine di guerra. Il Consiglio di sicurezza dell’Onu si riunisce domani per una sessione d’urgenza.

Decine di migranti sono stati uccisi nel bombardamento che ieri notte un aereo dell’aviazione del generale Khalifa Haftar ha compiuto contro un centro per migranti adiacente alla base militare di #Dhaman, nell’area di #Tajoura. La base di Dhaman è uno dei depositi in cui le milizie di Misurata e quelle fedeli al governo del presidente Fayez al-Serraj hanno concentrato le loro riserve di munizioni e di veicoli utilizzati per la difesa di Tripoli, sotto attacco dal 4 aprile dalle milizie del generale della Cirenaica.

▻https://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2019/07/03/news/libia_bombardato_centro_detenzione_migranti_decine_di_morti-230198952/?ref=RHPPTP-BH-I230202229-C12-P1-S1.12-T1

Le HCR et l’OIM condamnent l’attaque contre Tajoura et demandent une enquête immédiate sur les responsables

Le nombre effroyable de blessés et de victimes, suite à l’attaque aérienne de mardi soir à l’est de Tripoli contre le centre de détention de Tajoura, fait écho aux vives préoccupations exprimées par le HCR, l’Agence des Nations Unies pour les réfugiés, et l’Organisation internationale pour les migrations (OIM), concernant la sécurité des personnes dans les centres de détention. Ce tout dernier épisode de violence rend également compte du danger évoqué par l’OIM et le HCR concernant les retours de migrants et de réfugiés en Libye après leur interception ou leur sauvetage en mer Méditerranée.

Nos deux organisations condamnent fermement cette attaque ainsi que toute attaque contre la vie des civils. Nous demandons également que la détention des migrants et des réfugiés cesse immédiatement. Nous appelons à ce que leur protection soit garantie en Libye.

Cette attaque mérite davantage qu’une simple condamnation. Selon le HCR et l’OIM, une enquête complète et indépendante est nécessaire pour déterminer comment cela s’est produit et qui en est responsable, ainsi que pour traduire les responsables en justice. La localisation de ces centres de détention à Tripoli est bien connue des combattants, qui savent également que les personnes détenues à Tajoura sont des civils.

Au moins 600 réfugiés et migrants, dont des femmes et des enfants, se trouvaient au centre de détention de Tajoura. La frappe aérienne a causé des dizaines de morts et de blessés. Nous nous attendons de ce fait que le nombre final de victimes soit beaucoup plus élevé.

Si l’on inclut les victimes de Tajoura, environ 3300 migrants et réfugiés sont toujours détenus arbitrairement à Tripoli et en périphérie de la ville dans des conditions abjectes et inhumaines. De plus, les migrants et les réfugiés sont confrontés à des risques croissants à mesure que les affrontements s’intensifient à proximité. Ces centres doivent être fermés.

Nous faisons tout notre possible pour leur venir en aide. L’OIM et le HCR ont déployé des équipes médicales. Par ailleurs, une équipe interinstitutions plus large des Nations Unies attend l’autorisation de se rendre sur place. Nous rappelons à toutes les parties à ce conflit que les civils ne doivent pas être pris pour cible et qu’ils doivent être protégés en vertu à la fois du droit international relatif aux réfugiés et du droit international relatif aux droits de l’homme.

Le conflit en cours dans la capitale libyenne a déjà forcé près de 100 000 Libyens à fuir leur foyer. Le HCR et ses partenaires, dont l’OIM, ont transféré plus de 1500 réfugiés depuis des centres de détention proches des zones de combat vers des zones plus sûres. Par ailleurs, des opérations de l’OIM pour le retour volontaire à titre humanitaire ont facilité le départ de plus de 5000 personnes vulnérables vers 30 pays d’origine en Afrique et en Asie.

L’OIM et le HCR exhortent l’ensemble du système des Nations Unies à condamner cette attaque et à faire cesser le recours à la détention en Libye. De plus, nous appelons instamment la communauté internationale à mettre en place des couloirs humanitaires pour les migrants et les réfugiés qui doivent être évacués depuis la Libye. Dans l’intérêt de tous en Libye, nous espérons que les États influents redoubleront d’efforts pour coopérer afin de mettre d’urgence un terme à cet effroyable conflit.

▻https://www.unhcr.org/fr/news/press/2019/7/5d1ca1f06/hcr-loim-condamnent-lattaque-contre-tajoura-demandent-enquete-immediate.html

Affamés, torturés, disparus : l’impitoyable piège refermé sur les migrants bloqués en Libye

https://images.charentelibre.fr/2019/07/03/5d1cc8197971bb93700d2e83/golden/1000x625/malnutrition-enlevements-travail-force-torture-des-ong-presentes-en-libye-denoncent-les-conditions-de-detention-des-migrants-pieges-dans-ce-pays.jpg

Malnutrition, enlèvements, travail forcé, torture : des ONG présentes en Libye dénoncent les conditions de détention des migrants piégés dans ce pays, conséquence selon elles de la politique migratoire des pays européens conclue avec les Libyens.

Le point, minuscule dans l’immensité de la mer, est ballotté avec violence : mi-mai, un migrant qui tentait de quitter la Libye dans une embarcation de fortune a préféré risquer sa vie en plongeant en haute mer en voyant arriver les garde-côtes libyens, pour nager vers un navire commercial, selon une vidéo mise en ligne par l’ONG allemande Sea-Watch et tournée par son avion de recherche. L’image illustre le désespoir criant de migrants, en grande majorité originaires d’Afrique et de pays troublés comme le Soudan, l’Érythrée, la Somalie, prêts à tout pour ne pas être à nouveau enfermés arbitrairement dans un centre de détention dans ce pays livré au conflit et aux milices.

Des vidéos insoutenables filmées notamment dans des prisons clandestines aux mains de trafiquants d’êtres humains, compilées par une journaliste irlandaise et diffusées en février par Channel 4, donnent une idée des sévices de certains tortionnaires perpétrés pour rançonner les familles des migrants. Allongé nu par terre, une arme pointée sur lui, un migrant râle de douleur alors qu’un homme lui brûle les pieds avec un chalumeau. Un autre, le tee-shirt ensanglanté, est suspendu au plafond, un pistolet braqué sur la tête. Un troisième, attaché avec des cordes, une brique de béton lui écrasant dos et bras, est fouetté sur la plante des pieds, selon ces vidéos.

Le mauvais traitement des migrants a atteint un paroxysme dans la nuit de mardi à mercredi quand plus de 40 ont été tués et 70 blessés dans un raid aérien contre un centre pour migrants de Tajoura (près de Tripoli), attribué aux forces de Khalifa Haftar engagées dans une offensive sur la capitale libyenne. Un drame « prévisible » depuis des semaines, déplorent des acteurs humanitaires. Depuis janvier, plus de 2.300 personnes ont été ramenées et placées dans des centres de détention, selon l’ONU.

« Plus d’un millier de personnes ont été ramenées par les gardes-côtes libyens soutenus par l’Union européenne depuis le début du conflit en avril 2019. A terre, ces personnes sont ensuite transférées dans des centres de détention comme celui de Tajoura… », a ce réagi mercredi auprès de l’AFP Julien Raickman, chef de mission de l’ONG Médecins sans frontières (MSF) en Libye. Selon les derniers chiffres de l’Organisation internationale pour les migrations (OIM), au moins 5.200 personnes sont actuellement dans des centres de détention en Libye. Aucun chiffre n’est disponible pour celles détenues dans des centres illégaux aux mains de trafiquants.

L’UE apporte un soutien aux gardes-côtes libyens pour qu’ils freinent les arrivées sur les côtes italiennes. En 2017, elle a validé un accord conclu entre l’Italie et Tripoli pour former et équiper les garde-côtes libyens. Depuis le nombre d’arrivées en Europe via la mer Méditerranée a chuté de manière spectaculaire.
« Les morts s’empilent »

Fin mai, dans une prise de parole publique inédite, dix ONG internationales intervenant en Libye dans des conditions compliquées – dont Danish Refugee Council, International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps, Première Urgence Internationale (PUI) – ont brisé le silence. Elles ont exhorté l’UE et ses Etats membres à « revoir en urgence » leurs politiques migratoires qui nourrissent selon elles un « système de criminalisation », soulignant que les migrants, « y compris les femmes et les enfants, sont sujets à des détentions arbitraires et illimitées » en Libye dans des conditions « abominables ».

« Arrêtez de renvoyer les migrants en Libye  ! La situation est instable, elle n’est pas sous contrôle ; ils n’y sont en aucun cas protégés ni par un cadre législatif ni pour les raisons sécuritaires que l’on connaît », a réagi ce mercredi à l’AFP Benjamin Gaudin, chef de mission de l’ONG PUI en Libye. Cette ONG intervient dans six centres de détention dans lesquels elle est une des seules organisations à prodiguer des soins de santé.

La « catastrophe ne se situe pas seulement en Méditerranée mais également sur le sol libyen ; quand ces migrants parviennent jusqu’aux côtes libyennes, ils ont déjà vécu l’enfer », a-t-il témoigné récemment auprès de l’AFP, dans une rare interview à un média. Dans certains de ces centres officiels, « les conditions sont terribles », estime M. Gaudin. « Les migrants vivent parfois entassés les uns sur les autres, dans des conditions sanitaires terribles avec de gros problèmes d’accès à l’eau – parfois il n’y a pas d’eau potable du tout. Ils ne reçoivent pas de nourriture en quantité suffisante ; dans certains centres, il n’y a absolument rien pour les protéger du froid ou de la chaleur. Certains n’ont pas de cours extérieures, les migrants n’y voient jamais la lumière du jour », décrit-il.
Human Rights Watch, qui a eu accès à plusieurs centres de détention en 2018 et à une centaine de migrants, va plus loin dans un rapport de 2019 – qui accumule les témoignages de « traitements cruels et dégradants » : l’organisation accuse la « coopération de l’UE avec la Libye sur les migrations de contribuer à un cycle d’abus extrêmes ».

« Les morts s’empilent dans les centres de détention libyens – emportés par une épidémie de tuberculose à Zintan, victimes d’un bombardement à Tajoura. La présence d’une poignée d’acteurs humanitaires sur place ne saurait assurer des conditions acceptables dans ces centres », a déploré M. Raickman de MSF. « Les personnes qui y sont détenues, majoritairement des réfugiés, continuent de mourir de maladies, de faim, sont victimes de violences en tout genre, de viols, soumises à l’arbitraire des milices. Elles se retrouvent prises au piège des combats en cours », a-t-il dénoncé.

Signe d’une situation considérée comme de plus en plus critique, la Commissaire aux droits de l’Homme du Conseil de l’Europe a exhorté le 18 juin les pays européens à suspendre leur coopération avec les gardes-côtes libyens, estimant que les personnes récupérées « sont systématiquement placées en détention et en conséquence soumises à la torture, à des violences sexuelles, à des extorsions ». L’ONU elle même a dénoncé le 7 juin des conditions « épouvantables » dans ces centres. « Environ 22 personnes sont décédées des suites de la tuberculose et d’autres maladies dans le centre de détention de Zintan depuis septembre », a dénoncé Rupert Colville, un porte-parole du Haut-Commissariat de l’ONU aux droits de l’Homme.

MSF, qui a démarré récemment des activités médicales dans les centres de Zintan et Gharyan, a décrit une « catastrophe sanitaire », soulignant que les personnes enfermées dans ces deux centres « viennent principalement d’Érythrée et de Somalie et ont survécu à des expériences terrifiantes » durant leur exil. Or, selon les ONG et le HCR, la très grande majorité des milliers de personnes détenues dans les centres sont des réfugiés, qui pourraient avoir droit à ce statut et à un accueil dans un pays développé, mais ne peuvent le faire auprès de l’Etat libyen. Ils le font auprès du HCR en Libye, dans des conditions très difficiles.
« Enfermés depuis un an »

« Les évacuations hors de Libye vers des pays tiers ou pays de transit sont aujourd’hui extrêmement limitées, notamment parce qu’il manque des places d’accueil dans des pays sûrs qui pourraient accorder l’asile », relève M. Raickman. « Il y a un fort sentiment de désespoir face à cette impasse ; dans des centres où nous intervenons dans la région de Misrata et Khoms, des gens sont enfermés depuis un an. » Interrogée par l’AFP, la Commission européenne défend son bilan et son « engagement » financier sur cette question, soulignant avoir « mobilisé » depuis 2014 pas moins de 338 millions d’euros dans des programmes liés à la migration en Libye.

« Nous sommes extrêmement préoccupés par la détérioration de la situation sur le terrain », a récemment déclaré à l’AFP une porte-parole de la Commission européenne, Natasha Bertaud. « Des critiques ont été formulées sur notre engagement avec la Libye, nous en sommes conscients et nous échangeons régulièrement avec les ONG sur ce sujet », a-t-elle ajouté. « Mais si nous ne nous étions pas engagés avec l’OIM, le HCR et l’Union africaine, nous n’aurions jamais eu cet impact : ces 16 derniers mois, nous avons pu sortir 38.000 personnes hors de ces terribles centres de détention et hors de Libye, et les raccompagner chez eux avec des programmes de retour volontaire, tout cela financé par l’Union européenne », a-t-elle affirmé. « Parmi les personnes qui ont besoin de protection – originaires d’Érythrée ou du Soudan par exemple – nous avons récemment évacué environ 2.700 personnes de Libye vers le Niger (…) et organisé la réinstallation réussie dans l’UE de 1.400 personnes ayant eu besoin de protection internationale », plaide-t-elle.

La porte-parole rappelle que la Commission a « à maintes reprises ces derniers mois exhorté ses États membres à trouver une solution sur des zones de désembarquement, ce qui mettrait fin à ce qui passe actuellement : à chaque fois qu’un bateau d’ONG secoure des gens et qu’il y a une opposition sur le sujet entre Malte et l’Italie, c’est la Commission qui doit appeler près de 28 capitales européennes pour trouver des lieux pour ces personnes puissent débarquer : ce n’est pas viable ! ».

Pour le porte-parole de la marine libyenne, le général Ayoub Kacem, interrogé par l’AFP, ce sont « les pays européens (qui) sabotent toute solution durable à l’immigration en Méditerranée, parce qu’ils n’acceptent pas d’accueillir une partie des migrants et se sentent non concernés ». Il appelle les Européens à « plus de sérieux » et à unifier leurs positions. « Les États européens ont une scandaleuse responsabilité dans toutes ces morts et ces souffrances », dénonce M. Raickman. « Ce qu’il faut, ce sont des actes : des évacuations d’urgence des réfugiés et migrants coincés dans des conditions extrêmement dangereuses en Libye ».

▻https://www.charentelibre.fr/2019/07/03/affames-tortures-disparus-l-impitoyable-piege-referme-sur-les-migrants

« Mourir en mer ou sous les bombes : seule alternative pour les milliers de personnes migrantes prises au piège de l’enfer libyen ? »

Le soir du 2 juillet, une attaque aérienne a été signalée sur le camp de détention pour migrant·e·s de #Tadjourah dans la banlieue est de la capitale libyenne. Deux jours après, le bilan s’est alourdi et fait état d’au moins 66 personnes tuées et plus de 80 blessées [1]. A une trentaine de kilomètres plus au sud de Tripoli, plusieurs migrant·e·s avaient déjà trouvé la mort fin avril dans l’attaque du camp de Qasr Bin Gashir par des groupes armés.

Alors que les conflits font rage autour de Tripoli entre le Gouvernement d’union nationale (GNA) reconnu par l’ONU et les forces du maréchal Haftar, des milliers de personnes migrantes enfermées dans les geôles libyennes se retrouvent en première ligne : lorsqu’elles ne sont pas abandonnées à leur sort par leurs gardien·ne·s à l’approche des forces ennemies ou forcées de combattre auprès d’un camp ou de l’autre, elles sont régulièrement prises pour cibles par les combattant·e·s.

Dans un pays où les migrant·e·s sont depuis longtemps vu·e·s comme une monnaie d’échange entre milices, et, depuis l’époque de Kadhafi, comme un levier diplomatique notamment dans le cadre de divers marchandages migratoires avec les Etats de l’Union européenne [2], les personnes migrantes constituent de fait l’un des nerfs de la guerre pour les forces en présence, bien au-delà des frontières libyennes.

Au lendemain des bombardements du camp de Tadjourah, pendant que le GNA accusait Haftar et que les forces d’Haftar criaient au complot, les dirigeant·e·s des pays européens ont pris le parti de faire mine d’assister impuissant·e·s à ce spectacle tragique depuis l’autre bord de la Méditerranée, les un·e·s déplorant les victimes et condamnant les attaques, les autres appelant à une enquête internationale pour déterminer les coupables.

Contre ces discours teintés d’hypocrisie, il convient de rappeler l’immense responsabilité de l’Union européenne et de ses États membres dans la situation désastreuse dans laquelle les personnes migrantes se trouvent sur le sol libyen. Lorsqu’à l’occasion de ces attaques, l’Union européenne se félicite de son rôle dans la protection des personnes migrantes en Libye et affirme la nécessité de poursuivre ses efforts [3], ne faut-il pas tout d’abord se demander si celle-ci fait autre chose qu’entériner un système de détention cruel en finançant deux organisations internationales, le HCR et l’OIM, qui accèdent pour partie à ces camps où les pires violations de droits sont commises ?

Au-delà de son soutien implicite à ce système d’enfermement à grande échelle, l’UE n’a cessé de multiplier les stratégies pour que les personnes migrantes, tentant de fuir la Libye et ses centres de détention aux conditions inhumaines, y soient immédiatement et systématiquement renvoyées, entre le renforcement constant des capacités des garde-côtes libyens et l’organisation d’un vide humanitaire en Méditerranée par la criminalisation des ONG de secours en mer [4].

A la date du 20 juin 2019, le HCR comptait plus de 3 000 personnes interceptées par les garde-côtes libyens depuis le début de l’année 2019, pour à peine plus de 2000 personnes arrivées en Italie [5]. Pour ces personnes interceptées et reconduites en Libye, les perspectives sont bien sombres : remises aux mains des milices, seules échapperont à la détention les heureuses élues qui sont évacuées au Niger dans l’attente d’une réinstallation hypothétique par le HCR, ou celles qui, après de fortes pressions et souvent en désespoir de cause, acceptent l’assistance au retour « volontaire » proposée par l’OIM.

L’Union européenne a beau jeu de crier au scandale. La détention massive de migrant·e·s et la violation de leurs droits dans un pays en pleine guerre civile ne relèvent ni de la tragédie ni de la fatalité : ce sont les conséquences directes des politiques d’externalisation et de marchandages migratoires cyniques orchestrées par l’Union et ses États membres depuis de nombreuses années. Il est temps que cesse la guerre aux personnes migrantes et que la liberté de circulation soit assurée pour toutes et tous.

►http://www.migreurop.org/article2931.html
aussi signalé par @vanderling
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/791482

Migrants say militias in Tripoli conscripted them to clean arms

Migrants who survived the deadly airstrike on a detention center in western Libya say they had been conscripted by a local militia to work in an adjacent weapons workshop. The detention centers are under armed groups affiliated with the Fayez al-Sarraj government in Tripoli.

Two migrants told The Associated Press on Thursday that for months they were sent day and night to a workshop inside the Tajoura detention center, which housed hundreds of African migrants.

A young migrant who has been held for nearly two years at Tajoura says “we clean the anti-aircraft guns. I saw a large amount of rockets and missiles too.”

The migrants spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

▻http://www.addresslibya.com/en/archives/47932

Libia, bombe sul campo profughi: «Migranti usati come scudi umani»

Quest’estate il campo profughi di #Tajura in Libia è stato bombardato. Gaetano Pecoraro ci racconta cosa volevano colpire veramente quelle bombe

▻https://www.iene.mediaset.it/video/libia-bombe-campo-profughi-migranti_531023.shtml

#boucliers_humains

Statement by the Post-3Tajoura Working Group on the Three-Month Mark of the Tajoura Detention Centre Airstrike

On behalf of the Post-Tajoura Working Group, the European Union Delegation to Libya issues a statement to mark the passing of three months since the airstrike on the Tajoura Detention Centre. Today is the occasion to remind the Libyan government of the urgency of the situation of detained refugees and migrants in and around Tripoli.

https://eeas.europa.eu/sites/eeas/files/styles/eeas_full_width/public/2019/10/07/statement_ptwg.jpg?itok=QWASXqBl#.jpg

▻https://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/libya/68248/statement-post-tajoura-working-group-three-month-mark-tajoura-detention-

Statement by the Spokesperson on the situation in the #Tajoura detention centre

Statement by the Spokesperson on the situation in the Tajoura detention centre.

The release of the detainees remaining in the Tajoura detention centre, hit by a deadly attack on 2 July, is a positive step by the Libyan authorities. All refugees and migrants have to be released from detention and provided with all the necessary assistance. In this context, we have supported the creation of the Gathering and Departure Facility (GDF) in Tripoli and other safe places in order to improve the protection of those in need and to provide humane alternatives to the current detention system.

We will continue to work with International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and UNHCR (the UN Refugee Agency) in the context of the African Union-European Union-United Nations Task Force to support and protect refugees and migrants in Libya. We call on all parties to accelerate humanitarian evacuation and resettlement from Libya to third countries. In particular, we are supporting UNHCR’s work to resettle the most vulnerable refugees with durable solutions outside Libya, with around 4,000 individuals having been evacuated so far. We are also working closely with the IOM and the African Union and its Member States to continue the Assisted Voluntary Returns, thereby adding to the more than 45,000 migrants returned to their countries of origin so far.

The European Union is strongly committed to fighting traffickers and smugglers and to strengthening the capacity of the Libyan Coast Guard to save lives at sea. Equally, we recall the need to put in place mechanisms that guarantee the safety and dignity of those rescued by the Libyan Coast Guard, notably by ending arbitrary detention and allowing the UN agencies to carry out screening and registration and to provide direct emergency assistance and protection. Through our continuous financial support and our joined political advocacy towards the Libyan authorities, the UNHCR and IOM are now able to better monitor the situation in the disembarkation points and have regular access to most of the official detention centres.

Libya’s current system of detaining migrants has to end and migration needs to be managed in full compliance with international standards, including when it comes to human rights. The European Union stands ready to help the Libyan authorities to develop solutions to create safe and dignified alternatives to detention in full compliance with the international humanitarian standards and in respect of human rights.

▻https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage/65266/statement-spokesperson-situation-tajoura-detention-centre_en

05.11.2019

About 45 women, 16 children and some men, for a total of approximately 80 refugees, were taken out of #TariqalSikka detention centre by the Libyan police and taken to the #UNHCR offices in #Gurji, Tripoli, yesterday. UNHCR told them there is nothing they can do to help them so...
they are now homeless in Tripoli, destitute, starving, at risk of being shot, bombed, kidnapped, tortured, raped, sold or detained again in an even worst detention centre. Forcing African refugees out of detention centres and leaving them homeless in Tripoli is not a solution...
It is almost a death sentence in today’s Libya. UNHCR doesn’t have capacity to offer any help or protection to homeless refugees released from detention. These women & children have now lost priority for evacuation after years waiting in detention, suffering rape, torture, hunger...

▻https://twitter.com/GiuliaRastajuly/status/1191777843644174336
#SDF #sans-abri

#acta_est_fabula (un peu quand même)

What Happened to the Biggest Land Grab in Africa? Searching for #ProSavana in Mozambique

What if you threw a lavish party for foreign investors, and no one came? By all accounts, that is what’s happening in Mozambique’s Nacala Corridor, the intended site for Africa’s largest agricultural development scheme – or land grab, depending on your perspective.

The ProSavana project, a Brazilian-and-Japanese-led development project, was supposed to be turning Mozambique’s fertile savannah lands in the north into an export zone, replicating Brazil’s success taming its own savannah – the cerrado – and transforming it into industrial mega-farms of soybeans. The vision, hatched in 2009, but only revealed to Mozambicans in 2013, called for 35 million hectares (nearly 100 million acres) of “underutilized” land to be converted by Brazilian agribusiness into soybean plantations for cheaper export to China and Japan.

In my two weeks in Mozambique, including one week in the Nacala Corridor, I had a hard time finding evidence of any such transformation. It was easy, though, to find outrage at a plan seen by many in the region as a secret land grab. That resistance, which has evolved into a tri-national campaign in Japan, Brazil, and Mozambique to stop ProSavana, is one of the reasons the project is a currently a dud.

The new face of South-South investment?

I came to look at ProSavana because, out of all the large-scale projects I studied over the course of the last year, this one sounded almost plausible. It wasn’t started by some fly-by-night venture capitalist, growing a biofuel crop he’d never produced commercially for a market that barely existed. That’s what I saw in Tanzania, and such failed land grabs litter the African landscape.

ProSavana at least knew its investors: Brazil’s agribusiness giants. The planners also knew their technology: Brazil’s soybeans, which had adapted to the harsh tropical conditions of Brazil’s cerrado. And they knew their market: Japan’s and China’s hog farms and their insatiable appetite for feed, generally made with soybeans. That was already more than a lot of these grand schemes had going for them.

I was also compelled by the sheer scale of the project. When first announced, ProSavana was to encompass 35 million hectares of land, an area the size of North Carolina. That would have made it the largest land acquisition in Africa.

ProSavana also interested me because it was not the usual neo-colonial megaproject promoted by the Global North. It was a projection of Brazil’s agro-export prowess. This was South-South investment, the new wave of development in a multipolar world. Wouldn’t Brazil do this differently, I wondered, with the kind of strong developmental focus that had characterized the country’s ascendance under the leadership of the left-leaning Workers’ Party?

ProSavana’s premise was that the soil and climate in the Nacala Corridor of Mozambique were similar to those found in the cerrado, so technology could be easily adapted to tame a region inhospitable to agriculture.

Someone should have gone there before they issued the press releases.

It turns out that the two regions differ dramatically. The cerrado had poor soils, which technology was able to address. That’s also why it had few farmers, and those that were there could be moved by Brazil’s then-military dictatorship. The Nacala Corridor, by contrast, has good soils, which is precisely why it is the most densely-populated part of rural Mozambique. (If there are good lands, you can bet civilization has discovered them and is farming them.)

Mozambique also has a democratic government, forged in an independence movement rooted in peasant farmers’ struggle for land rights. So the country has one of the stronger land laws in Africa, which grants use rights to farmers who have been farming land for ten years or more.

The disconnect between the claims ProSavana was making to its investors and the reality of the situation reached almost laughable proportions. Agriculture Minister Jose Pacheco led sales visits to Mozambique, organized by Brazil’s Getulio Vargas Foundation, which had put together the agribusiness-friendly draft “Master Plan” that was leaked to Mozambican civil society organizations in March 2013. Brazil’s biggest farmers came looking for thousands of hectares of land, only to find three disappointments: they couldn’t own land in Mozambique; what land they could lease was by no means empty; and it was far from the ports, with no decent roads to transport their soybeans. Brazil’s soybean mega-farmers packed up their giant combines and went back to the cerrado, where there are still millions of hectares of undeveloped land.

A kinder, gentler ProSavana

There are a few large soybean farms in Gurue, producing for the domestic poultry industry; but nothing like the export boom promised by ProSavana. According to Americo Uaciquete of ProSavana’s Nampula office, Brazilian farmers came expecting 40,000 hectares free and clear. He told me no investor could expect that in the Nacala Corridor. The only foreign investors who will farm there, he said, are those willing to take 2,000 hectares and involve local farmers.

To me, that sounded like a very quick surrender on the ProSavana battlefield. Couldn’t the Mozambican government open larger swaths of land?

“Not without a gun,” Uaciquete said, clearly rejecting that path. “We are not going to impose the Brazilian model here.” He went on to describe ProSavana as a support program for small-scale farmers, based on its two non-investment components: research into improved locally adapted seeds, and extension services to improve productivity.

In Maputo, the ProSavana Directorate did its best to polish up the new, development-friendly ProSavana. Jusimere Mourao, of Japan’s cooperation agency, had it down best. She lamented that ProSavana was “poorly timed” because its “announcement” (a leak) “coincided” with international concerns about land grabbing. Hmmm….

After taking civil society concerns into account, she said, the program had issued a new “concept note” and the Master Plan is under revision. “Small and medium producers are the main beneficiaries of ProSavana,” she said. “We have no intention of promoting the taking of their land. It would be a crime.” It’s not about promoting foreign investment, she assured me; that is up to the Mozambican government.

The turnaround was stunning, and welcome, if not quite believable. It certainly had not quieted the coalition calling for an end to ProSavana until farmers and civil society groups are consulted on the agricultural development plan for the Nacala Corridor.

Luis Sitoe, Economic Adviser to the Minister of Agriculture, smirked when I told him I’d been in the region researching ProSavana. “Did you find anything?” For him, ProSavana had failed.

But lest I think anything profound had been learned from that experience, he reassured me that the Mozambican government remains firmly committed to relying on large-scale foreign investment to address its agricultural underdevelopment.

He pulled out a two-inch-thick binder to show me he was serious. It was the project proposal for the Lurio River Valley Development Project, a 200,000-hectare irrigation scheme right there in the northern Nacala Corridor. Was it part of ProSavana? Absolutely not. Had the communities been consulted on this ambitious project along the heavily populated river valley?

“Absolutely not,” said Vicente Adriano, research director at UNAC, Mozambique’s national farmers’ union, which had just presented its own agricultural development plan, based on the country’s three million family farmers.

The ProSavana directorate is still promising a new Master Plan for the project in early 2015. So it would be a mistake to think that ProSavana is dead. Large-scale land deals certainly aren’t, however they are branded. Investors may just be waiting for the Mozambican government to bring more to the table than just promotional brochures. Things like land, which turns out to be rather important for a successful land grab. In the Nacala Corridor, that land is anything but unoccupied.

▻https://foodtank.com/news/2014/12/what-happened-to-the-biggest-land-grab-in-africa-searching-for-prosavana-i

Prosavana a été enterré l’an passé
Les paysans mozambicains font reculer l’agro-industrie par Stefano Liberti
▻https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2018/06/LIBERTI/58745

▻https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/local/cache-vignettes/L890xH1235/mozambique-prosavana-v6-237bc-b8faf.jpg?1527616618

ProSAVANA e FACE OCULTA Do Prodecer

▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUKmyKf5E0k

#alimentation #Inde

@sinehebdo

On l’ajoute à la troisième compilation :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/680147

#effondrement #collapsologie #catastrophe #fin_du_monde #it_has_begun #Anthropocène #capitalocène

Une ONG présentée dans le film, au Ghana :
#Food_sovereignty_ghana

Food Sovereignty Ghana is a grass-roots movement of Ghanaians, home and abroad, dedicated to the promotion of food sovereignty in Ghana. Our group believes in the collective control over our collective resources, rather than the control of our resources by multinational corporations and other foreign entities. This movement is a product of Special Brainstorming Session meeting on the 21st of March, 2013, at the Accra Freedom Centre. The meeting was in response to several calls by individuals who have been discussing, writing, or tweeting, about the increasing phenomenon of land grabs, the right to water and sanitation as a fundamental human right, water privatization issues, deforestation, climate change, carbon trading and Africa’s atmospheric space, and in particular, the urgent issue of the introduction of GM food technology into our agriculture, particularly, its implications on food sovereignty, sustainable development, biodiversity, and the integrity of our food and water resources, human and animal health, and our very existence as a politically independent people. These calls insisted that these issues need to be comprehensively addressed in a systematic and an organized manner.

Foremost in these calls was the need for a comprehensive agricultural policy that respects the multi-functional roles played by agriculture in our daily lives, and resists the avaricious calculations behind the proposition that food is just another commodity or component for international agribusiness. The trade in futures or speculation involving food have pushed food prices beyond the reach of almost a billion of people in the world who go to bed, each day, hungry. Even though we have have doubled the amount of food to feed everybody in the world today, people still don’t have access to food. The primary cause of this is the neo-liberal agenda of the imperialists, such as the SAP, EPA, AGOA, TRIPS, AoA, AFSNA, AGRA, which have the focus on marginalising the small family farm agriculture that continues to feed over 80% of Africa and replacing them with governance structures, agreements and practices that depend on and promote unsustainable and inequitable international trade and give power to remote and unaccountable corporations.

We came together in order to help turn a new leaf. We see a concerted effort, over the years, to distort our agriculture to such an extent that today, our very survival as a free and independent people crucially depend on how fast we are able to apply the breaks, and to rather urgently promote policies that focus on food for people, and value our local food providers, the arduous role of the resilient small family farm for thousands of years. We need to resist imperialist policies such as the Structural Adjustment Programmes of the World Bank and the IMF which rolled away 30 years of gains towards food sovereignty in the 1970s and 80s. Those African countries that graduated from the SAP were subsequently slammed with HIPIC. In all these years, the imperialist countries fortified their agricultural production with heavy government subsidies, as Africa saw the imposition of stringent conditionality removing all government subsidies on our own agriculture. The effect has been a destruction of our local food production capacity and a dependence on corporations for our daily food needs. This has had a devastating effect on Africa’s agriculture, and our ability to feed ourselves.

We believe that a proper analysis of the food crisis is a matter that cannot be left with trade negotiators, investment experts, or agricultural engineers. It is essentially a matter of political economy. As Jean Ziegler succinctly puts it, “Every child who dies of hunger in today’s world has been murdered.” Our Food Under Our Control! is determined to make sure that such a crime becomes impossible in Ghana. Our number one mission is to switch the language from food security to food sovereignty as the goal, to repeat the words food sovereignty at every opportunity and say we don’t want food security, that can still be dependence, we want food sovereignty, we need food sovereignty. This is not the same as “food security”. A country can have food security through food imports. Dependence on food imports is precarious and prone to multiple risks — from price risks, to supply risks, to conditionality risks (policy conditions that come with food imports). Food sovereignty, on the other hand, implies ensuring domestic production and supply of food. It means that the nationals of the country (or at the very least nationals within the region) must primarily be responsible for ensuring that the nation and the region are first and foremost dependent on their own efforts and resources to grow their basic foods.

Aims and objectives:

1. To help promote the people’s right to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and to generally ensure the priority of domestic food crops produced by small farms over export crops.

2. To help create mass awareness about the political, economic, health and environmental impacts of genetically modified food technology and defend the right of the people to define their own food and agricultural systems.

3. To help ensure small farms are sustained by state provision and facilitation of necessary infrastructure: Security of land tenure, Water, Financial credit, Energy, Fertilizers, Transport, Storage, Extension service, Marketing, Technology and Equipment for production, harvesting, storage and transport, and Insurance against crop failures due to climate changes, or other unforeseen circumstances.

4. To help resist the theft, destruction, and loss of the Commons, our natural and indigenous resources, by means of laws, commercial contracts and intellectual property rights regimes, and to generally serve as the watch-dog over all aspects of agricultural sustainability in Ghana.

5. To help protect and preserve public access to and ownership of the Commons: Water, Land, Air, Seeds, Energy, Plants, Animals, and work closely with like-minded local, national, and international organisations in the realization of the foregoing objectives.

http://foodsovereigntyghana.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/head21.jpg

Un chercheur, #Damián_Verzeñassi de l’#université_de_Rosario, mentionné il y a une année dans un article de Mediapart :

Argentine : soja transgénique voisine avec maladies

Avia Terai, ville de 10 000 habitants, est exposée aux pulvérisations incessantes sur ses champs de soja et de coton de glyphosate, le composant de base de l’herbicide de Monsanto. Un pesticide que l’Organisation mondiale pour la santé a étiqueté cancérogène en 2015. Ici, des enfants naissent avec des malformations, des troubles neurologiques sévères et le taux de cancer est trois fois plus élevé que la moyenne nationale, selon l’étude du docteur argentin Damián Verzeñassi de l’université de Rosario. De son côté, Monsanto nie catégoriquement l’authenticité de ces études et considère que la #toxicité de son produit phare Roundup n’a pas encore été prouvée.

▻https://www.mediapart.fr/studio/portfolios/argentine-soja-transgenique-voisine-avec-maladies

Le chercheur a fait une étude dans laquelle il montrait un lien entre le glyphosate et le développement de cancer :
“Hay una incidencia del glifosato en los nuevos casos de cáncer”

Desde 2010 se hicieron relevamientos en 32 localidades de la región pampeana y se relevaron más de 110 mil personas. Según Verzeñassi, si se encontró en estas localidades, donde se aplicó el modelo productivo con transgénicos a base de agrotóxicos, un pico muy importante de casos de cáncer, hipotiroidismo y abortos espontáneos.

https://rosarionuestro.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/damina-versenazi2.jpg

#Red_de_Médicos_de_Pueblos_Fumigados (Argentine)

La Red Universitaria de Ambiente y Salud (REDUAS) es una coordinación entre profesionales universitarios, académicos, científicos, miembros de equipos de salud humana en sus distintos niveles y demás estudiosos, preocupados por los efectos deletéreos de la salud humana que genera el ambiente degradado a consecuencias de la actividad productiva humana, especialmente cuando esta se da a gran escala y sustentada en una visión extractivista.

La REDUAS surge como una de las decisiones tomadas en el 1º Encuentro de Médicos de Pueblos Fumigados, realizado en la Facultad de Ciencias Médicas de la Universidad Nacional de Córdoba y organizado por el Modulo de Determinantes Sociales de la Salud de la Cátedra de Pediatría y por la Cátedra de Medicina I de dicha Facultad; concretado el 26 y 27 de agosto de 2010

La REDUAS se construye para unir, coordinar y potenciar el trabajo de investigación científica, asistencia sanitaria, análisis epidemiológico y divulgación ,difusión y defensa del derecho a la salud colectiva, que realizan equipos que desarrollan este tipo de actividades en 10 provincias distintas de la Republica Argentina y que se encuentran activados por el problema del daño a la salud que ocasiona la fumigación o aspersión, sistemática de más de 300 millones de litros de plaguicidas sobre casi 12 millones de personas que conviven con los sembradíos de cultivos agroindustriales.

Para avanzar en ese sentido se propone aportar al debate público por la necesidad de construir prácticas productivas que permitan una supervivencia feliz de la especie humana en la superficie terrestre y de la responsabilidad publica, privada, colectiva e individual en el resguardo de esas condiciones ecológicas.

Considerando al derecho a la salud, como uno de los valores sociales que debemos tratar de privilegiar en el análisis de las decisiones políticas y económicas que se toman en nuestra sociedad, creemos necesario ampliar la difusión del conocimiento de los datos científicos que se dispone, y que muchas veces se invisibilizan; aportar a la generación de nuevos datos e informaciones experimentales y observacionales – poblacionales; y potenciar la voz de los equipos de salud, investigadores y pobladores en general afectados en sus derechos por agresiones ambiéntales generadas por practicas productivas ecológicamente agresivas.

http://reduas.com.ar/wp-content/themes/twentyten/images/headers/header-v1.jpg

#Madres_de_Ituzaingo_Anexo-Cordoba
▻http://madresdeituzaingoanexo.blogspot.fr

Madres de #Ituzaingó: 15 años de pelea por el ambiente

En marzo de 2002 salieron a la calle por primera vez para reclamar atención sanitaria ante la cantidad de enfermos en el barrio.Lograron mejorar la zona y alejar las fumigaciones, nuevas normas ambientales y un juicio inédito. Dicen que la lucha continúa. Un juicio histórico

http://wpc.72c72.betacdn.net/8072C72/lvi-images/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_1020_560/public/nota_periodistica/madres_ituzaingo_1.jpg

#Manu_Chao: Te lo digo, te lo canto: FUERA MONSANTO!!
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHGt7z-br5g

Transgenic DNA introgressed into traditional maize landraces in #Oaxaca, Mexico

Concerns have been raised about the potential effects of transgenic introductions on the genetic diversity of crop landraces and wild relatives in areas of crop origin and diversification, as this diversity is considered essential for global food security. Direct effects on non-target species1,2, and the possibility of unintentionally transferring traits of ecological relevance onto landraces and wild relatives have also been sources of concern3,4. The degree of genetic connectivity between industrial crops and their progenitors in landraces and wild relatives is a principal determinant of the evolutionary history of crops and agroecosystems throughout the world5,6. Recent introductions of transgenic DNA constructs into agricultural fields provide unique markers to measure such connectivity. For these reasons, the detection of transgenic DNA in crop landraces is of critical importance. Here we report the presence of introgressed transgenic DNA constructs in native maize landraces grown in remote mountains in Oaxaca, Mexico, part of the Mesoamerican centre of origin and diversification of this crop7,8,9.

▻https://www.nature.com/articles/35107068

#Gilles-Éric_Séralini

Gilles-Éric Séralini, né le 23 août 1960 à Bône en Algérie1, est un biologiste français, professeur de biologie moléculaire à l’université de Caen2. Il est cofondateur, administrateur et membre du conseil scientifique du CRIIGEN3, parrain de l’association Générations Cobayes4 et lanceur d’alerte5. Il est aussi membre du conseil scientifique de The Organic Center6, une association dépendant de l’Organic Trade Association (en)7, « le principal porte-parole du business bio aux États-Unis »8, et parrain de la Fondation d’entreprise Ekibio9.

Il s’est fait notamment connaître du grand public pour ses études sur les OGM et les pesticides, et en particulier en septembre 2012 pour une étude toxicologique portée par le CRIIGEN mettant en doute l’innocuité du maïs génétiquement modifié NK 603 et du Roundup sur la santé de rats10,11. Cette étude, ainsi que les méthodes utilisées pour la médiatiser, ont été l’objet d’importantes controverses, les auteurs étant accusés d’instrumentaliser de la science, ou même suspectés de fraude scientifique12,13. En réalité, les agences de santé européennes et américaines réagissent sur le tard, indiquant les lacunes et faiblesses méthodologiques rédhibitoires de la publication (notamment un groupe de contrôle comportant un nombre d’individus ridiculement bas). Certains dénoncent aussi un manque de déontologie pour s’assurer d’un « coup de communication ». La revue Food and Chemical Toxicology retire l’étude en novembre 2013.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/26/Pr_seralini_sept2013.jpg/440px-Pr_seralini_sept2013.jpg

Dans le documentaire on parle notamment d’un article qu’il a publié dans la revue « Food and chemical toxicology », que j’ai cherché sur internet... et... suprise suprise... je l’ai trouvé, mais le site de Elsevier dit... « RETRACTED »
Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize
▻https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691512005637

Il est par contre dispo sur sci-hub !
▻http://sci-hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fct.2012.08.005

voici la conclusion :

In conclusion, it was previously known that glyphosate con- sumption in water above authorized limits may provoke hepatic and kidney failures ( EPA ). The results of the study presented here clearly demonstrate that lower levels of complete agricultural gly- phosate herbicide formulations, at concentrations well below offi- cially set safety limits, induce severe hormone-dependent mammary, hepatic and kidney disturbances. Similarly, disruption of biosynthetic pathways that may result from overexpression of the EPSPS transgene in the GM NK603 maize can give rise to com- parable pathologies that may be linked to abnormal or unbalanced phenolic acids metabolites, or related compounds. Other muta- genic and metabolic effects of the edible GMO cannot be excluded. This will be the subject of future studies, including transgene and glyphosate presence in rat tissues. Reproductive and multigenera- tional studies will also provide novel insights into these problems. This study represents the first detailed documentation of long- term deleterious effects arising from the consumption of a GM R- tolerant maize and of R, the most used herbicide worldwide. Altogether, the significant biochemical disturbances and physi- ological failures documented in this work confirm the pathological effects of these GMO and R treatments in both sexes, with different amplitudes. We propose that agricultural edible GMOs and formu- lated pesticides must be evaluated very carefully by long term studies to measure their potential toxic effects.

#RiskOGM

RiskOGM constitue depuis 2010 l’action de recherche du ministère en charge de l’Écologie, du Développement durable et de l’Énergie pour soutenir la structuration d’une communauté scientifique et le développement de connaissances, de méthodes et de pratiques scientifiques utiles à la définition et à la mise en œuvre des politiques publiques sur les OGM.

Le programme s’appuie sur un Conseil Scientifique et sur un Comité d’Orientation qui réunit des parties prenantes.

Les axes de recherche prioritaires identifiés portent sur les plans de surveillance générale des OGM, la coexistence des cultures, la gouvernance, les aspects économiques, éthiques et sociaux ou encore la démarche globale d’analyse de la sécurité des aliments contenant des produits transgéniques,

3 projets en cours ont été soutenus après un 1er appel à proposition fin 2010. Fin 2013, suite à un deuxième appel, le projet (#PGM / #GMO90plus) a été sélectionné et soutenu à hauteur de 2,5 M€. Il vise à une meilleure connaissance des effets potentiels sur la santé de la consommation sur une longue durée de produits issus des plantes génétiquement modifiées.

▻http://recherche-riskogm.fr/fr
#programme_de_recherche

Un projet dont fait partie #Bernard_Salles, rattaché à l’INRA, interviewé dans le documentaire.
Lui, semble clean, contrairement au personnage que je vais un peu après, Pablo Steinberg

Projet #G-Twyst :

G-TwYST is the acronym for Genetically modified plants Two Year Safety Testing. The project duration is from 21 April 2014 – 20 April 2018.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has developed guidance for the risk assessment of food and feed containing, consisting or produced from genetically modified (GM) plants as well as guidance on conducting repeated-dose 90-day oral toxicity study in rodents on whole food/feed. Nonetheless, the long-term safety assessment of genetically modified (GM) food/feed is a long-standing controversial topic in the European Union. At the present time there are no standardized protocols to study the potential short-, medium- and/or long-term toxicity of GM plants and derived products. Against this backdrop the main objective of the G-TwYST project is to provide guidance on long-term animal feeding studies for GMO risk assessment while at the same time responding to uncertainties raised through the outcomes and reports from recent (long-term) rodent feeding studies with whole GM food/feed.

In order to achieve this, G-TwYST:

Performs rat feeding studies for up to two years with GM maize NK603. This includes 90 day studies for subchronic toxicity, 1 year studies for chronic toxicity as well as 2 year studies for carcinogenicity. The studies will be based on OECD Test Guidelines and executed according to EFSA considerations
Reviews recent and ongoing research relevant to the scope of G-TwYST
Engages with related research projects such as GRACE and GMO90plus
Develops criteria to evaluate the scientific quality of long-term feeding studies
Develops recommendations on the added value of long-term feeding trials in the context of the GMO risk assessment process.
As a complementary activity - investigates into the broader societal issues linked to the controversy on animal studies in GMO risk assessment.
Allows for stakeholder engagement in all key steps of the project in an inclusive and responsive manner.
Provides for utmost transparency of what is done and by whom it is done.

G-TwYST is a Collaborative Project of the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration Activities. The proposal for G-TwYST was established in reponse to a call for proposals on a two-year carcinogenicity rat feeding study with maize NK603 that was launched by he European Commission in June 2013 (KBBE.2013.3.5-03).

▻https://www.g-twyst.eu

Attention : ce projet semble être sous forte influence des lobbys de l’OGM...

Fait partie de ce projet #Pablo_Steinberg, interviewé dans le documentaire.

Pablo Steinberg est d’origine argentine, il est également le toxicologue du projet « #GRACE : GMO Risk Assessment and communication evidence », financé par l’UE :

GRACE was a project funded under the EU Framework 7 programme and undertaken by a consortium of EU research institutes from June 2012 - November 2015. The project had two key objectives:

I) To provide systematic reviews of the evidence on the health, environmental and socio-economic impacts of GM plants – considering both risks and possible benefits. The results are accessible to the public via an open access database and other channels.

II) GRACE also reconsidered the design, execution and interpretation of results from various types of animal feeding trials and alternative in vitro methods for assessing the safety of GM food and feed.

The Biosafety Group was involved in the construction of the central portal and database (CADIMA; Central Access Database for Impact Assessment of Crop Genetic Improvement Technologies) that managed the information gathered in the pursuit of the two objectives and in the dissemination of information.

▻http://biosafety.icgeb.org/projects/grace

La conférence finale de présentation du projet GRACE a été organisée à Potsdam... un 9 novembre... date-anniversaire de la chute du mur...
Voici ce que #Joachim_Schiemann, coordinateur du projet, dit à cette occasion (je transcris les mots prononcés par Schiemann dans le reportage) :

« Nous aussi, avec nos activités, nous essayons d’abattre certains murs et de faire bouger certaines positions qui sont bloquées. Je trouve que c’est très symbolique d’avoir organisé cette conférence à Potsdam, à proximité de Berlin et des vestiges du mur »

Prof. Potrykus on #Golden_Rice

#Ingo_Potrykus, Professor emeritus at the Institute of Plant Sciences, ETH Zurich, is one of the world’s most renowned personalities in the fields of agricultural, environmental, and industrial biotechnology, and invented Golden Rice with Peter Beyer. In contrast to usual rice, this one has an increased nutritional value by providing provitamin A. According to WHO, 127 millions of pre-school children worldwide suffer from vitamine A deficiency, causing some 500,000 cases of irreversible blindness every year. This deficiency is responsible for 600,000 deaths among children under the age of 5.

▻https://blog.psiram.com/2013/09/prof-potrykus-on-golden-rice
Ce riz, enrichi de #bêtacarotène pour pallier aux carences de #provitamine_A, a valu, à Monsieur #Potrykus, la couverture du Time, une première pour un botaniste :

https://blog.psiram.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/who_ingo-TIME.jpg

Golden Illusion. The broken promise of GE ’Golden’ rice

GE ’Golden’ rice is a genetically engineered (GE, also called genetically modified, GM) rice variety developed by the biotech industry to produce pro-vitamin A (beta-carotene). Proponents portray GE ’Golden’ rice as a technical, quick-fix solution to Vitamin A deficiency (VAD), a health problem in many developing countries. However, not only is GE ’Golden’ rice an ineffective tool to combat VAD it is also environmentally irresponsible, poses risks to human health, and compromises food security.

▻https://www.greenpeace.org/archive-international/en/publications/Campaign-reports/Genetic-engineering/Golden-Illusion
#rapport

#MASIPAG (#Philippines)

MASIPAG a constaté que les paysans qui pratiquent la production agricole biologique gagnent en moyenne environ 100 euros par an de plus que les autres paysans, parce qu’ils ne dépensent pas d’argent dans des fertilisants et pesticides chimiques. Dans le contexte local, cela représente une économie importante. En plus, l’agriculture biologique contribue à un milieu plus sain et à une réduction des émissions de gaz à effet de serre. Malgré cela, le gouvernement philippin poursuit une politique ambiguë. En 2010, il a adopté une loi sur la promotion de l’agriculture biologique, mais en même temps il continue à promouvoir les cultures génétiquement modifiées et hybrides nécessitant le recours aux intrants chimiques. La loi actuelle insiste également sur une certification couteuse des produits bio par les tiers, ce qui empêche les #petits_paysans de certifier leurs produits.

▻http://astm.lu/projets-de-solidarite/asie/philipinnes/masipag
#paysannerie #agriculture_biologique

#AquAdvantage

Le saumon AquAdvantage (#AquAdvantage_salmon® pour les anglophones, parfois résumé en « #AA_Salmon » ou « #AAS ») est le nom commercial d’un saumon transgénique et triploïde1.

Il s’agit d’un saumon atlantique modifié, créé par l’entreprise AquaBounty Technologies (en)2 qui est devenu en mai 2016 le premier poisson génétiquement modifié par transgenèse commercialisé pour des fins alimentaires. Il a obtenu à cette date une autorisation de commercialisation (après son évaluation3) au Canada. En juillet 2017, l’entreprise a annoncé avoir vendu 4,5 tonnes de saumon AquAdvantage à des clients Canadiens qui ont à ce jour gardés leur anonymat4. L’entreprise prévoit de demander des autorisations pour des truites5, des tilapias 5 et de l’omble arctique génétiquement modifiés6.

Selon les dossiers produits par AquaBounty à la FDA, deux gènes de saumons Chinook et deux séquences provenant d’une autre espèce (loquette d’Amérique) ont été introduits7, (information reprise par un article du New-York Times8 et un article scientifique évoquent aussi un gène provenant d’un autre poisson (loquette d’Amérique9). En 2010, AquaBounty, produirait déjà au Canada sur l’Île-du-Prince-Édouard les œufs de poissons destinés à des élevages en bassins enclavés à terre au Panama10 pour des poissons à exporter (alors que l’étiquetage n’est toujours pas obligatoire aux États-Unis)10.

Ce poisson est controversé. Des préoccupations scientifiques et environnementalistes portent sur les risques d’impacts environnementaux à moyen et long terme, plus que sur le risque alimentaire. La FDA a considéré que la modification était équivalente à l’utilisation d’un médicament vétérinaire (hormone de croissance et modification transgénique)11 et a donc utilisé son processus (dit « NADA12 ») d’évaluation vétérinaire. Dans ce cadre, la FDA a conclu que ce poisson ne présentait a priori pas de risques pour la santé, et pouvait être cultivé de manière sûre. Mais en 2013, l’opportunité d’élever un tel poisson reste très contestée13 notamment depuis au moins 1986 concernant les risques qu’il pourrait poser à l’égard de l’environnement14, l’autorisation de mise sur le marché pourrait être à nouveau repoussée15.

https://www.notre-planete.info/actualites/images/alimentation/minis/Saumon-Frankenfish.jpg

Aussi appelé...
#FrankenFish

En Amérique du Nord, l’enjeu premier est celui de l’#étiquettage concernant la présence ou non d’OGM...

A ce sujet, le #documentaire Modifié, de #Aube_Giroux (Canada, 1h27, 2017)
►https://www.modifiedthefilm.com

https://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2017/10/fullsizeoutput_1d74.jpeg.860x0_q70_crop-scale.jpg

#agriculture #semences #graines #souveraineté_alimentaire #alimentation

How to declare a famine: A primer from South Sudan

Understanding the complexities of food security analysis in South Sudan, where more than seven million people are at risk of starvation.
A series of maps released last week showing progressively larger areas of red projects a grim picture of growing hunger in South Sudan, and warns that famine could break out again in some areas unless adequate aid is delivered. UN agencies say that the “food security outlook has never been so dire as it is now,” and that roughly seven million people will require humanitarian aid to avert starvation.

https://i.imgur.com/U9yNQcd.png

A-t-on des données sur le nombre de « pledge » suivi d’effet ?

on peut logiquement penser (espérer) qu’il y a un suivi à ces deux initiatives et des comptes-rendus à venir. Affaires #à_suivre
▻http://afr100.org
▻http://www.bonnchallenge.org

Pour une carte, cf. ►https://seenthis.net/messages/621269

#famine

Vulnerability Assessment of Syrian Refugees in Egypt 2016

Syrian refugees have sought safe haven in Egypt for seven years, since the onset of war. There are now 500,000 Syrians residing in Egypt according to government estimates, and by large they have been treated fairly and with respect by the Egyptian government and citizens. In December 2016, 116,013 Syrian refugees were registered with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). Nonetheless, the protracted nature of the war, together with major structural changes to Egypt’s economy have increased risk factors for refugees. Following the implementation of the recent economic and financial reforms and the floatation of the Egyptian Pound, inflation in the overall Consumer Price Index reached 29.6 per cent at the beginning of 2017. Moreover, inflation in the Food Price Index reached a historic peak of 38.6 per cent, all of which led to increased pressures on households to meet basic needs of food and nonfood items. The humanitarian assistance delivered is essential to address dramatic increases in the vulnerability of Syrian refugees.

The findings of the 2016 Egypt Vulnerability Assessment (EVAR), a comprehensive multi-sector household-level survey of 23,345 Syrian refugee households in Egypt, are presented in this report, which builds upon similar data collected in 2014/2015 to produce a longitudinal perspective that allows for the identification of important patterns. The quantitative nature of the results are triangulated with qualitative data gleaned from 59 focus group discussions undertaken as part of UNHCR’s 2016 Participatory Assessment. Together, the data presented in this report permits humanitarian actors to better identify vulnerabilities and capacities, understand the patterns and relations between variables that affect vulnerability, and ultimately generate sustainable programmes that reduce vulnerability and increase the protection and self-reliance of refugees.

This report demonstrates that challenges for Syrian refugees in Egypt have increased since the onset of the crisis. Refugee household expenditures have increased significantly; personal debt has increased; and financial assets have decreased. Food consumption and food security are below acceptable standards for many refugee households. In addition, the data indicates that difficulties Syrian refugees face in accessing formal labour markets are a major contributor towards their increasing vulnerability.

▻https://reliefweb.int/report/egypt/vulnerability-assessment-syrian-refugees-egypt-2016
#vulnérabilité #rapport