Gagrule.net

Gagrule.net News, Views, Interviews worldwide

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • GagruleLive
  • Armenia profile

Vancouver, BC: Kurdish community to protest Ottawa’s refugee limit

September 5, 2015 By administrator

By Mike Hager  VANCOUVER — The Globe and Mail,

COMRwHdWsAAbKVfBritish Columbia’s small Kurdish community is rallying around the aunt of a drowned Syrian boy, whose parents had given up hope of settling in Canada, to demand Ottawa accept more refugees fleeing the humanitarian crisis.

Shwan Chawshin, a spokesperson for the non-profit Kurdish House, which plans community gatherings, said his group is organizing the several thousand Kurdish people living in the province to join a rally in Vancouver on Sunday calling on the Canadian government to at least double its stated commitment to admitting 10,000 Syrian refugees by the end of 2017.

Tima Kurdi, who is Kurdish, is expected to be there, he said. Ms. Kurdi is the Coquitlam woman who had once planned on sponsoring her brother’s family before his wife and children drowned off the coast of Turkey. Photos of Ms. Kurdi’s three-year-old nephew Alan’s limp body were “very sad not just for the Kurdish community, but to the whole world,” Mr. Chawshin said.

“We want Canada to pay attention to those countries that are torn apart by war,” Mr. Chawshin said. “To many people, Canadian immigration policy is prejudiced and discriminatory.”

Mr. Chawshin, who also runs the KurdTV program on a local multicultural channel, said he remembers being only the second Kurd in the province when he fled northern Iraq and arrived in British Columbia, by way of Sweden, in 1984. Most of the Kurdish population is spread across Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Armenia and Syria, so arrivals list those countries as their nationality when entering Canada, Mr. Chawshin said. That makes it difficult to know the true size of the B.C. community, which is estimated at between 3,000 and 4,000.

Several hundred Kurdish refugees arrived in Metro Vancouver in the mid-1990s after fleeing Saddam Hussein’s renewed oppression in northern Iraq, according to Chris Friesen, who is the director of settlement services at the non-profit Immigration Services Society of B.C. Most of those immigrants are now “doing exceptionally well,” he said.

Ottawa honoured a 2013 commitment to resettle 1,300 Syrian refugees this past March and a spokesman with Citizenship and Immigration Canada says the department has so far settled 1,074 new Syrians as part of its January goal to resettle another 10,000 over the next three years.

The government wouldn’t provide a breakdown of where those Syrians have put down roots, but Quebec has taken the largest share and B.C. has welcomed only 72, according to Mr. Friesen, who also chairs the Canadian Immigrant Settlement Sector Alliance lobby group.

Mr. Friesen said those refugees often “are arriving with varying degrees of trauma, because the war is so near to them.”

“Many family members are dealing with horrific migration experiences,” he said.

Most are provided with housing allowances matching B.C.’s $375 welfare rates and have settled in Vancouver suburbs such as New Westminster, Surrey and Coquitlam, Mr. Friesen said.

After news broke of the Kurdi family’s tragedy, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson said Thursday he has asked the city manager to review how the municipality can offer more immediate assistance to refugees from Syria and Iraq.

Shirley Bond, B.C.’s minister responsible for labour, issued a statement Thursday saying immigration decisions “lie entirely with the federal government,” but that her province will continue to welcome the settlement of refugees.

Mr. Friesen said the imbalance in how many Syrian refugees the provinces take in exists because Canada is overly reliant on the private sponsorship of refugees, by either faith groups or family members, many of whom are living in Quebec.

Mr. Friesen’s national association is calling on the government to initiate its refugee emergency contingency plan, created in 2002 after the Kosovo crisis, to expedite the immigration of Syrian refugees with family in Canada. As well, the group wants Ottawa to consult with the United Nations and European Union to finalize an emergency settlement target, which could greatly increase the number of Syrian refugees Canada agrees to welcome.

Source:

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: BC, Kurd, refugee, Vancouver

Erbil (Iraqi Kurdistan): 8,000 visa applications for refugee France (Bishop)

August 15, 2014 By administrator

The Consulate General of France in Erbil, where tens of thousands of Christians have fled the jihadists in Iraq, has already recorded 8,000 visa applications, said Thursday the Bishop of Saint-Etienne, back from a five-day movement Area.

“Some of these Iraqi refugees will be welcomed into Christian communities” in France, said Archbishop Dominique Lebrun during a press conference. He said the staff of the consulate are being strengthened with the influx of visa applications.

On Wednesday, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve had raised “hundreds of applications”, adding that there was “no limit” set by the government for hosting these refugees. “Our consulate in Erbil is doing so to make this possible reception when it becomes inevitable,” he added, stressing that the will of France is first to allow minorities to continue live in Iraq.

Bishop Lebrun called again Thursday, as the spokesperson of the Conference of Bishops of France Bishop Bernard Podvin Wednesday and the Vatican Monday to use force against the jihadists.

“We saw there a despair and poignant stories of refugees. (…) It is legitimate to use force to stop the killers and rapists of a so-called state based on terror (…). The so-called army of so-called Islamic state, these are only a few thousand criminals who engage in barbarism, to the systematic slaughter, “insisted Bishop. He referred videos and testimonies “by which whole groups of over a hundred people were arrested, killed and thrown into the Tigris.”

Friday, August 15, 2014,
Stéphane © armenews.com

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Christians, erbil, refugee

Face of Syrian war seen in youngest

July 30, 2014 By administrator

Syrian-youngestAt Jordan’s Zaatari refugee camp near the border with Syria, the horror of the neighboring country’s civil war can be seen in the faces of its youngest refugees, AP reported.

More than 50,000 refugees under the age of 18 call the wind-swept, massive desert camp home. All have stories about the war, like 11-year-old Amal Qalloosh, who fled her home near the city of Daraa with her family after a government bombing.

“On the way here, there was a lot of shelling,” Qalloosh said. “It was terrifying but we made it all safe to the camp.”

Some children work in Zaatari, while the lucky attend school at the camp. As Muslims celebrated Eid al-Fitr this week, marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan, some children received new clothes from aid agencies and played, though life in the camp can be hard.

More than 2.8 million Syrian children inside and outside the country – nearly half the school-aged population – cannot get an education because of the devastation from the civil war, according to the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF. That number is likely higher, as UNICEF can’t count the children whose parents didn’t register with the United Nations refugee agency.

UNICEF estimates more than 10,000 children have died in the violence. Others suffer from emotional problems after experiencing the war.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: refugee, Syria, youngest

Support Gagrule.net

Subscribe Free News & Update

Search

GagruleLive with Harut Sassounian

Can activist run a Government?

Wally Sarkeesian Interview Onnik Dinkjian and son

https://youtu.be/BiI8_TJzHEM

Khachic Moradian

https://youtu.be/-NkIYpCAIII
https://youtu.be/9_Xi7FA3tGQ
https://youtu.be/Arg8gAhcIb0
https://youtu.be/zzh-WpjGltY





gagrulenet Twitter-Timeline

Tweets by @gagrulenet

Archives

Books

Recent Posts

  • Armenia: Letter from the leader of the Sacred Struggle, political prisoner Bagrat Archbishop Galstanyan
  • U.S. Judge Dismisses $500 Million Lawsuit By Azeri Lawyer Against ANCA & 29 Others
  • These Are the Social Security Offices Expected to Close This Year, Musk call SS Ponzi Scheme
  • Breaking News, Pashinyan regime has filed charges against public figure Edgar Ghazaryan,
  • ANCA’s Controversial Endorsement: Implications for Armenian Voters

Recent Comments

  • administrator on Turkish Agent Pashinyan will not attend the meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of State
  • David on Turkish Agent Pashinyan will not attend the meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of State
  • Ara Arakelian on A democratic nation has been allowed to die – the UN has failed once more “Nagorno-Karabakh”
  • DV on A democratic nation has been allowed to die – the UN has failed once more “Nagorno-Karabakh”
  • Tavo on I’d call on the people of Syunik to arm themselves, and defend your country – Vazgen Manukyan

Copyright © 2025 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in