Refugees and Migrants

This Wednesday, our top stories cover: leaders gathered in Geneva to tackle hate speech; the 50th birthday of the UN sexual and reproductive health agency (UNFPA); Goodwill Ambassador Ben Stiller advocating for Syrian refugees in the USA; human rights issues in the Philippines and in Venezuela; and an update on the UN peacekeeping misson in Abyei.

Without increased support, the health, education and well-being of at least 327,000 children from Venezuela living as migrants and refugees in Colombia will be in jeopardy, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Monday.

This Friday, we cover: the UN Secretary-General's message in China for sustainable development; the toll of a second cyclone in Mozambique; what UN officials saw first-hand in the Rohingya refugee camp of Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh; the impact of insecurity on education in Mali; and the importance of information-sharing in the fight against terrorism. 

Doctors, journalists, students and farmers are among more than 60,000 Nicaraguans who have fled the country in fear of their lives since anti-Government demonstrations began last April, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, said on Tuesday.

In a heartfelt briefing to the Security Council on Tuesday, Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, has said that, during his three and a half decades as an international civil servant, he has “never seen such toxicity, such poisonous language in politics, media and social media,” directed towards refugees, migrants and foreigners.

An upsurge of violence in the south-east of Niger means that the population’s suffering is increasing “with each passing month,” a UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) spokesperson warned on Tuesday, at a press briefing in Geneva. In March alone, some 88 civilians were reported to have died during attacks.

Gender equality, the marginalization of indigenous languages, migration, the refugee crisis, the lives of domestic workers, poverty… All these issues which are at the heart of the United Nations’ work, are also front and centre in some of the films celebrated this year at the Academy Awards.

Despite record numbers of people forcibly displaced across borders, with 1.2 million in need of a new permanent place to call home last year, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) released new data on Tuesday showing that only 55,700 of them – 4.7 per cent – were able to be resettled in 2018.

An upsurge in violent attacks in crisis-riven north-east Nigeria has displaced nearly 60,000 people in the last three months, the UN migration agency, IOM, said on Tuesday.

Six people died every day last year trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe – “the world’s deadliest sea crossing” - the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Wednesday, citing ongoing political deadlock over sea rescue and disembarkation.