Safe migration, conflict prevention, sustainable development and United Nations reform will be the priorities of the 72nd UN General Assembly over the coming year, the 193-member body’s President, Miroslav Lajcak, said on Wednesday.
The head of the United Nations refugee agency on Tuesday kicked off in Geneva a dialogue on protection challenges with a stark warning: the tragedy of forced displacement has deepened – one year after the world pledged to improve its response to refugee situations.
The United Nations is stepping up its work to stop the grave abuses perpetrated against refugees and migrants along the Central Mediterranean routes, including alleged slave trade in Libya, two UN agency chiefs told the Security Council Tuesday.
Stating that the beating of refugees and asylum-seekers at the former regional processing centre on Manus Island by uniformed officers is both “shocking and inexcusable,” the United Nations refugee agency has urged the Australian Government to take immediate action to ensure their safety and protection.
Three weeks following the closure of the Manus Island regional processing centre, the situation on the ground is very serious and deteriorates by the day, a senior United Nations official on protection of refugees has said.
Strongly condemning the widespread violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, which has led to the displacement of over 600,000 members of the country’s minority Muslim Rohingya community, the United Nations Security Council on Monday called on the Government to end the use of excessive military force and intercommunal violence in the region.
With ever-increasing numbers of people on the move, travelling away from their homelands in search of better opportunities, a United Nations regional meeting opened today in Bangkok, Thailand, exploring options to make migration safer and better protect their rights.
The United Nations human rights office on Friday expressed its concern over “an unfolding humanitarian emergency” at Australia's offshore detention centre, where refugees and asylum seekers are holding out after the Australian Government's decision to close the facility and pull out its support staff.
As more than 3,000 desperate, tired and hungry Rohingya refugees have crossed into Bangladesh from Myanmar over the past two days, United Nations agencies and their partners are working around the clock to provide urgent life-saving aid and shelter to this latest influx.
Issuing a dire warning on the desperate situation of Rohingya refugee children, who now number more than 320,000 in Bangladesh, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has called for an end to the atrocities targeting civilians in Myanmar's Rakhine state, and immediate and unfettered access to all children affected by the violence there.
