The Government of Greece has been urged by the United Nations to do more to help thousands of asylum-seekers and migrants who have been “crammed” into island reception centres, amid reports that children have tried to take their own lives there.
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.
As hundreds of Venezuelans continue to pour into neighbouring countries due to social and political upheaval at home, the heads of the United Nations refugee and migration agencies called for greater international support to meet the most basic needs of the displaced.
The many life-threatening dangers faced by children from Central America who are being deported from the United States of America and Mexico, are highlighted in a new report from United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on Thursday, which also draws attention to the traumatic consequences of family separation by migration authorities.
Marking the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, UN Secretary-General António Guterres put a spotlight on the factors pushing indigenous people to migrate “within their countries and across international borders” despite their “profound spiritual connection to their lands and resources”.
As conflicts and natural disasters have sharply deteriorated living conditions in the Horn of Africa and Yemen, more and more people have been crossing the Gulf of Aden in both directions, leading the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to appeal for $45 million to provide critical aid to 81,000 people over three years.
Governments are being urged to ensure that the rights of indigenous peoples are recognized, whether they are living on their traditional lands or forced to move elsewhere.
Some 117,000 Venezuelans have claimed asylum already this year — more than for the whole of 2017 — the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Tuesday, after welcoming a decision by the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court to reverse the closure of the country’s border with its northern neighbour.
