Help Refugees Access Lifesaving Information

On behalf of everyone here at Internews, THANK YOU for your support!

With your support, we’re now on our 21^st issue of the News That Moves Rumor Tracker.  What has become clear is that rumor and misinformation that is circulating among refugee populations is causing panic, fear and confusion. Because of your ongoing contributions, we are able to counter these rumors with reliable information that refugee populations can use to guide them in their journey.

Updates:

As many of you know, the closing on the borders along the Balkan Route in early March, and the signing of the EU/Turkey deal soon after, has resulted in the change in operations for Internews and other agencies who are responding to this crisis. Currently, the majority of those affected by this change in policy are refugees who are stuck in Greece. Greek officials estimate that somewhere between 50,000 and 70,000 refugees are stuck in Greece, many of them living in dire conditions in camps that are running low on food, water, and basic supplies. Refugees also have an acute need for news and information, most imminently concerning information related to border and migration, which enables them to make informed decisions and stay safe.

The Rumor Tracker

The Mediterranean Rumor Tracker is a project that collects all of the rumors among refugees passing through Europe. By identifying misinformation and hearsay and responding to it with relevant, factual information, NewsThatMoves Rumor Tracker aims to keep the refugee population at the forefront of our communication response. The Rumor Tracker also feeds into our central news platform, “News That Moves,” a news information service that aggregates and creates content from stringers all along the Balkans route. You can read the full archived reports by following the links attached at the bottom of this report. Here are just two examples of the rumors we have been hearing over the last month, to give you an idea of the kinds of questions and concerns people have.

RUMOR: “After they [authorities] transfer people to camps, everyone who is left at the port will be taken to military camps.”

The majority of the organized sites for accommodating refugees in Greece are under the control and management of the Greek military. Very few sites (such as Elliniko) are not under military management. Some sites or camps may have caravans for shelter and others have tents. According to Greek authorities, all refugees will be taken from Piraeus port to organized sites or camps.

RUMOR: “Now that the EU-Turkey deal is cancelled, the 7 billions will be given to Greece, and will be used to relocate people [refugees] to the EU countries by ships or airplanes.”

The EU-Turkey deal that was signed on 18 March 2016 has not been canceled and it is still in force. Greece will not receive 7 billion EUR as part of this deal. People can be relocated from Greece to other EU countries through the EU Relocation Program. To apply for the EU Relocation Program you first have to register to apply for asylum in Greece and you have to be from Syria, Iraq, Eritrea, Burundi, Central African Republic, Maldives, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Bahrain, or be a stateless person who was living in one of the aforementioned countries.

Background:

When we first arrived on Lesbos in September of 2015, helping fill the information needs of the refugees focused on the basics:  while many travelers were cell-phone equipped, what they really needed was posters at the beaches with a map, telling them where they were (that have landed on an island, and were not in mainland Greece), how far key services were (60 km, up some steep hills – not an easy walk), and how much a taxi would cost and when busses would arrive.  While the information was somewhat simple, the ability to provide it was complicated– in multiple languages, to people with different rates of literacy and access to technology. 

 Posters were just a start.  The primary source of information flows among the refugee population was word of mouth, amplified by smartphones.  Much of the information, unfortunately, is rumor and misinformation, some of it quite dangerous and many of it originates with the smugglers in Turkey. 

 In response to this, we complimented the posters with a rumor tracking system and an online, virtual newsroom, News That Moves, to disseminate verified, actionable information to people making the journey to Europe.  This information is distributed on-line, via apps, on billboards, and printed flyers through humanitarian assistance partners. 

Then, the situation changed. On March 20th when the EU- Turkey agreement took effect, the door to Europe slammed shut.   IDP camps are turning into detention centers and dreams of asylum are turning into fears of deportation. 

Given the lack of clarity surrounding the agreement, the “What Now” question has changed…  It is less about where to go and much more about complex asylum laws and still-unclear government procedures, often buried under several layers of national and international law. Under so much new uncertainty and complexity, information is all the more important.

Thanks so much for your support! We so appreciate your compassion and generosity – we will be sure to keep you informed as the project continues. 

Links:

• Read the Rumor Tracker Reports!

REFUGEES ON THE MOVE

Hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees are either already on the move or planning to leave camps in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan; tens of thousands more are on the move from Afghanistan, Nigeria, Mali, Somalia, Libya, Iran, Iraq and other countries where war and violent extremism have killed and injured their families and destroyed their homes and livelihoods.

There is a clear recognition that migrant and refugee flows are now one of the defining and truly global humanitarian issues of the age. Regulation and management of human flow is enormously complicated by local, national, pan-regional political, policy and conflict dynamics.

The New Humanitarian Challenges

• Service Provision: scale, nature, location, effectiveness or sustainability of service provision cannot be easily planned or predicted for on-the-move populations
• Multiple language groups – including different host communities
• Fluctuating demographics (men, women, youth, children, LGBT and the elderly) that change according to factors as varied as the weather, policy changes or conflict dynamics theatres.
• Mobile populations are vulnerable to a huge range of protection threats and human rights abuses: human trafficking, kidnap, extortion, theft, rape and other abuses by smugglers, police, local authorities, criminal gangs and non-state actors.
• Communicating with beneficiaries is complicated by all of the above: this impacts negatively on trust relationships between humanitarians and the affected population.
• Data Gathering: as human flows are fragmented and deliberately shift over time to avoid border blockages and contact with authorities, many refugees fall through the cracks, or come into contact only with small local organizations and volunteer groups. Even where aid agencies meet refugees, many of the usual data-gathering exercises that are now standard tools and methodologies for humanitarians are being challenged to find new modes of analysis that can be meaningful for populations on the move.

 Beyond Messaging - Humanitarian Information Services: Dialogue and Intelligence

 There is a new and powerful factor contributing to and influencing the dynamics of this migrant crisis: The INFORMATION ECOSYSTEM.

• Information flows through new technologies and social media have a profound impact on the behaviour of people affected by crisis. This poses both challenges and opportunities for humanitarian responders.
• Quality of information that refugees receive and exchange at all stages of their journeyis playing an increasingly critical role in driving and shaping the complex humanitarian crisis  
• Prevalence of mobile phones and widespread use of social media channels and apps amongst mobile populations suggests they are “well informed”. Evidence from the ground suggests otherwise: phones are being used for social but not information purposes
• Bad information circulates as swiftly as good information.  Rumour, propaganda and misinformation can be powerful disruptive influences on behaviour and a threat to safety.
• Access to mobile/online is patchy: many refugees, especially those in vulnerable and marginalized groups still rely on word of mouth that can further degrade the quality of information they use to make decisions
• New technologies enable malevolent actors to engage with and refugees, increasing vulnerability to physical threat and extremist narratives – including after they arrive in Europe to find expectations not met or reality a challenge.
• New technology and social media enable nimble response from volunteers and local organizations: the humanitarian sector lags behind in this style of engagement.

Impact of information technologies on refugee flows has the potential to increase human vulnerability and disrupt the humanitarian response. Current approaches to “beneficiary communication” fall short of comprehensive information services that engage in real time information-rich dialogue with refugees.

Without new information-based tools and design models, the humanitarian sector risks being excluded from the information ecosystems that inform and drive refugee flows, and provide vital crowdsourced intelligence that can shape nimble and appropriate response, inform policy and mitigate risk.

Humanitarian Information Services for Refugees

 www.newsthatmoves.org is a news website updated several times a day, produced in Farsi, Arabic, English and Greek that   offers detailed, verified information for Syrian refugees in camps and on the move.

News that Moves is available online to Syrians everywhere and is pushed out widely to volunteer Facebook sites, the Google/IRC InfoAid App, cross-posted to refugee Facebook pages (tens of thousands of likes), and shared via e-newsletters to more than 100 humanitarian organizations and others serving Syrian refugees in camps and along the migration route. Links to the site, audio and print are provided at many points of contact with refugees, including transportation hubs and registration centres. 

The website includes feedback mechanisms that receive refugee questions in all languages, for both fine-grained human review and larger-scale natural language processing that will allow us to identify and respond to trends and needs.

Humanitarian Information Services for Refugees

OUTCOMES AND IMPACT

• Humanitarian Impact: two-way communication with refugees enables agencies to regulate and plan service delivery more effectively and connect refugees to services, management of human flows, understanding where refugees are, where they are going and what they need, communicating to them about what is available where and what is NOT available, and managing expectations.
• Countering Narratives of Violent Extremism: trust relationships and dialogue are a powerful tool to counter extremism. NewsThatMoves can manage expectations, sustain gratitude and optimism amongst refugees, promote positive engagement with host populations and counter the disorientation and frustration that feeds extremism.
• Protection Impact: two-way communication flows empower refugees with real-time information: to plan routes, mitigate risk (extortion, trafficking, rape, gangs, smugglers, riots), and avoid bottlenecks and border standoffs.
• Human Rights Impact: NewsThatMoves informs refugees of their rights, and also has the potential to integrate secure rights reporting tools that can receive and track violations, and crowd-source trends and specific cases for closer investigation by advocates or specialists.
• Conflict Mitigation/Host Population Impact:  NewsThatMoves supports connection and dialogue between refugees and host populations, both while in transit and upon final arrival