The 12 were rescued by the Hovercraft of the Indian Coast Guard from the 4th islet in Dhanushkodi police station limits. Those arriving on Tuesday included 3 men, 3 women, and 6 children. Dhanushkodi police told IANS that the 12 belong to three different families and have paid their lifetime savings for the fishing boat to drop them at the 4th islet.
They were taken to Rameswaram police station and after necessary medical checkups and proper verification of identities, all 12 were shifted to Mandapam refugee camp.
Since the commencement of the domestic crisis in Sri Lanka, 170 people have arrived on the Tamil Nadu coast.
A 71-year-old woman Sri Lankan refugee Parameswari who had landed at the Dhanushkodi mound along with her husband, Periyannan (80) died in the Government Rajaji Medical College, Hospital at Madurai on July 2. The woman had arrived at Rameswaram along with her husband on June 27 and was rescued by the Indian Coast Guard and Coastal Security Group after they had waded through neck-deep water into Dhanushokodi shores. The woman and her husband were immediately taken to the hospital for dehydration, where Parameswari passed away. This was the only incidence of a refugee dying after reaching Indian shores since the commencement of the refugee movement into India.
"I warn those who impose sanctions that if Iran's ability to fight drugs and terrorism are affected ... you will not be safe from a deluge of drugs, asylum seekers, bombs and terrorism," said Rouhani at an international conference here attended by Parliament Speakers of China, Russia, Turkey, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"America's oppressive and illegal sanctions against Iran is a clear instance of terrorism," the President told the second conference on "challenges of terrorism and inter-regional connectivity".
Speaking on the sidelines of the conference, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that the US poured weapons into the Middle East much more than what the region needs and turned it into a "powder keg", Iranian official news agency IRNA reported.
"The Americans have turned the region into a powder keg. The amount of weaponry, which is sold on the part of the US is unbelievable and quite a lot in excess of what the region needs.
"This indicates the very dangerous policy that the Americans pursue in our region," said Zarif.
Citing a report, Zarif said that weapons supplied by the US and Britain had "fallen into" the hands of splinter groups in Yemen, "some with links to Al Qaeda and Islamic State". He said the oversupply of the arms had not contributed to peace and security in the region in any manner.
Washington, Zarif said, was trying to portray the realities of the region "upside down", resort to "meaningless" accusations and trouble Tehran's relations with Europe.
The Foreign Minister claimed that the US "has become isolated in the world".
"Washington entered (trade) war with China and even arrested a senior Huawei executive that indicate the US frustration rather than its power, he said.
Measles, a childhood killer disease which can be particularly dangerous among unimmunised and malnourished children, is one of the major health risks for the refugees who have fled their homes in Myanmar's Rakhine State, said the office of the spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, Xinhua reported.
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that Rohingya refugees continue to flee into Bangladesh, although at a slower rate than in previous weeks.
As of Wednesday, 613,000 refugees had arrived in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, since August 25, when attacks by Rohingya rebels on Myanmar police and security posts touched off retribution.
More than half of new arrivals are staying in the Kutupalong-Balukhali expansion site, which merges several pre-existing settlements with new land allocated by the Bangladeshi government, said OCHA.
As of Friday, the Rohingya Refugee Crisis Response Plan has received $143.5 million, or a third of requirements. Donors pledged a total of $360 million for the response last month, and the United Nations urges donors to disburse this money as quickly as possible.
On Friday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres renewed his call for unfettered humanitarian access to Myanmar's northern Rakhine State and demanded the dignified return of the Rohingya refugees to their homes.
"We insist on the need to make sure, not only that all violence against this population stops, but also we need to insist on unhindered humanitarian access to all areas of Rakhine State, including the northern part of this region," he told reporters here in New York prior to his trip to Bonn, Germany for a UN climate conference.
"We insist on the need to reassert the right of return ... for all the population that fled to Bangladesh and to the areas of origin -- not to be placed in camps, not having access to the places where they left."
Guterres emphasized the importance of addressing the root cause of the problem, which relies largely on the problems related to citizenship for the Rohingyas -- an Indo-Aryan Muslim minority in overwhelmingly Buddhist Myanmar -- and to the legal status of this population "that has been discriminated and that is stateless at the present moment."
"The latest statistics of the Iraqi ministry of migration shows 99,852 displaced people since the launch of operations to free the neighbourhoods of Mosul's right bank (western side)," Xinhua quoted a statement by Jassim Mohammed al-Jaf, Minister of Migration and Displaced.
On Sunday, teams affiliated to the ministry received 10,607 civilians who left their homes from the battleground of the neighbourhoods of western Mosul, Jaf said.
The migration ministry prepared appropriate places to shelter the displaced people and provided emergency supplies, including food and medicine, Jaf added.
The announcement came as the Iraqi security forces were pushing deeper into the IS-held western side of Mosul, locally known as right bank of Tigris River, which bisects the city.
The troops dislodged IS terrorists from several neighbourhoods in the southern part of Mosul's western side, including the main government buildings in the old city centre.
The refugees, from Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan, and including 65 minors, were evacuated from Tripoli late on Wednesday by the Emergency Transit Mechanism in Niger, which is run by the UNCHR.
Some of the refugees had been detained for over a year, the UNCHR said. They will now receive humanitarian assistance at the ETM while further options for them, such as resettlement, are pursued, it said.
"On World Refugee Day, for the first time in a long time, these refugees will be able to sleep at night knowing they and their families are out of harm's way," said Jean-Paul Cavalieri, UNHCR mission chief for Libya.
"We cannot underestimate just how important these life-saving evacuations are."
But more needed to be done, Cavalieri underlined.
With the conflict in Tripoli showing no sign of ebbing, 3,800 refugees and migrants trapped in detention centres remain at risk of being caught up in the deadly clashes between eastern warlord Khalifa Haftar's forces and militias loyal to the UN-backed government, the UNHCR said.
Rising numbers of people are also being brought to detention centres after being intercepted by the Coast Guard off Libya's coast, meaning many more places are urgently needed.
"States urgently need to come forward to help us evacuate other vulnerable refugees out of Libya," Cavalieri underlined, calling on local authorities to free all refugees and asylum-seekers from detention.
The UNHCR said has helped 1,297 vulnerable refugees to leave Libya this year, including 711 who have been airlifted to Niger, 295 to Italy, and 291 who have been resettled to Europe and Canada.
All the refugees airlifted abroad were previously released from detention centres across Libya and sheltered at the UNHCR's Gathering and Departure Facility in Tripoli, where they received food and medical aid including psycho-social support, as well as clothes and hygiene kits, the UN agency said.
A group of representatives of the refugees, including a few women, submitted a petition to District Collector K Rajamani.
Later talking to reporters, the Lankan nationals said they were staying in the refugee camp at Pooluvapatti for 29 years.
They were unable to go back to their nation and hence wanted Indian citizenship, they said.
A senior official of the Mizoram Election Department told IANS on the condition of anonymity that as per a January 16 agreement arrived at in Delhi between different stakeholders it was decided to rehabilitate Mizoram's 34,000 Reang tribals in Tripura.
Mizoram's Joint Chief Electoral Officer David L. Pachuau however told IANS that the state was yet to receive any clear-cut instructions from the Election Commission about these tribal voters.
"After receiving EC instructions, we will undertake the removal of their names from the voters' list in Mizoram," Pachuau said on phone.
Media reports quoting Mizoram Chief Electoral Officer Ashish Kundra said that the names of these Reang tribals would be deleted as per the Representation of the People's Act of 1951.
"The deletion process will be taken up during the next round of electoral rolls revision after the relief camps in Tripura are closed," Kundra was quoted as saying, who was not available for comments personally as he was said to be busy meeting Election Commission officials in Delhi.
The official said that the state government will take the EC's nod before the deletion of names and follow the set procedure. Annual summary revision of electoral lists in most states, including Mizoram, is on, with January 1, 2020, as the qualifying date for age eligibility.
According to Mizoram Election Department officials, the Reang tribal voters originally numbered 12,081, but with the return of around 1,100 refugees to Mizoram villages last year, the voters still housed in the Tripura relief camps would be around 11,000.
The 34,000 Reang tribals hail from Mizoram's Mamit, Lunglei and Kolasib districts, spanning nine of the state's 40 Assembly constituencies.
Meanwhile, General Secretary Bruno Msha of Mizoram Bru Displaced People's Forum (MBDPF), an apex body of Reang tribal refugees, told IANS that the work to enrol eligible tribal refugees in Tripura and removal of their names from the Mizoram voters list had not yet started.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and the Mizoram Assembly polls in November 2018, around 60 to 65 per cent of the over 12,000 Reang tribal voters cast ballots at Kanhmun, a village along the Mizoram-Tripura border, around 50-60 km from their camp.
The Election Commission had set up 15 special polling stations at Kanhmun to facilitate voting by Reang refugees.
As per the January 16 agreement, each Reang tribal refugee family will get a 40x30 feet plot in Tripura to construct a house, fixed deposit of Rs 4 lakh for two years, Rs 1.5 lakh for house building, Rs 5,000 per month for two years, and free ration for two years.
The agreement was signed by the Union Home Ministry officials, Tripura and Mizoram Chief Secretaries, six Reang tribal refugee leaders, and on behalf of newly formed apolitical body Tiprasa that is headed by Tripura's erstwhile royal family's scion Pradyut Kishore Debbarman.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Tripura and Mizoram Chief Ministers Biplab Kumar Deb and Zoramthanga were present on the occasion.
Deb said that a six-member Joint Monitoring Committee headed by the MHA's Special Secretary (Internal Security) will be formed to oversee the implementation of the agreement, expected to be executed within six months.
(IANS)