UN declined offers to assist Uyghur asylum seekers detained in Thailand

May 2, 2024 | The New Humanitarian

The 2023 report by UHRP gathered insights from 11 Uyghur asylum seekers based in Türkiye, Pakistan, and India, all of whom shared the feeling that UNHCR was “inaccessible, unresponsive, and even irrelevant to them”.

Three of the asylum seekers in Pakistan said they were unable to obtain or renew UNHCR documents confirming their refugee status, leaving them at risk of deportation and unable to work legally. They described being bounced between the agency’s offices at their own cost, “only to find that the Lahore office wasn’t staffed at the time, or that services were actually not accessible in Lahore, even though the Islamabad office had assured that they were available”, according to the report.

“They are condemned to a life of semi-legal subsistence in their host countries, and their interactions with UNHCR are at best an added frustration rather than a source of hope,” the report says.

Peter Irwin, UHRP’s associate director for research and advocacy, told The New Humanitarian that documenting these cases is meant to encourage UNHCR to find ways to fulfil its mandate despite China’s efforts to obstruct their work.

Referring to the Uyghurs held in Thailand, Irwin said: “UNHCR is the world’s foremost refugee resettlement agency, so it’s difficult to accept that limits on access preclude them from addressing the issue in other ways.”

“To be honest, we’re really getting tired of waiting around for more people to die before anything happens,” he added. “It’s been 10 years, and [UNHCR’s] current approach just hasn’t worked unfortunately.”

Read the full article: https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/investigations/2024/05/02/un-declined-offers-assist-uyghur-asylum-seekers-detained-thailand