Migration is a “a defining feature of humanity and our world”, the UN chief told the General Assembly on Wednesday, launching his second report on the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.
Conflict, climate change and COVID-19, have created a perfect storm of challenges facing refugees, displaced people and their hosts, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, told the Security Council on Tuesday.
Our main stories today: UN officials warn of desperate situation for migrants and refugees in Libya; the UN peacebuilding chief calls for ‘tangible steps’ to alleviate the crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and keep two-State solution alive; Idlib in Syria suffers more deadly attacks on civilians; Europe and Bangladesh deal with extreme weather events; and Angry Birds take on the climate crisis.
A record 70.8 million people fled war, persecution and conflict in 2018, UN refugee agency chief Filippo Grandi said on Wednesday, appealing for greater international solidarity to counter the fact that “we have become almost unable to make peace”.
The United Nations General Assembly officially endorsed the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration on Wednesday, a non-binding agreement adopted in Marrakech on 10 December by 164 Member States, and described by UN chief António Guterres as a “roadmap to prevent suffering and chaos”.
With more and more children forced to leave their homes, over half of the world’s school-aged refugees are now out of education, the United Nations refugee agency said in a new report released on Wednesday.
The United States government decision to end its border policy of forcibly separating migrant children from their parents, does not help thousands of youngsters already in detention, who should be released and reunited with their families, a group of UN rights experts said on Friday.
Rohingya children are facing threats either from severe weather approaching Bangladesh where hundreds of thousands are sheltered in squalid, overcrowded refugee camps, or by ongoing violence in their Myanmar homeland, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Friday, calling urgently for scaled-up assistance ahead of the region’s storm season and to address the root causes of the crisis.
