Refugees and Migrants

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) launched an urgent $7 million appeal on Thursday, to ease the impact of COVID-19 on migrant communities in five Central Asian countries and the Russian Federation, where the pandemic is pushing a growing number of migrant workers into poverty.

Thousands of migrants have been stranded “all over the world” where they face a heightened risk of COVID-19 infection, the head of UN migration agency, IOM, said on Thursday.

Handwashing with soap and water has been identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as an extremely important way to reduce the spread of COVID-19 but, in many countries, even basic facilities are hard to come by. On Hand Hygiene Day, marked on Tuesday, we look in-depth at the work that one US-based NGO is doing, providing soap in shelters supported by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), in Mexico.

With many European health services struggling to deal with an influx of COVID-19 patients, many refugees and migrants with experience in the sector, are being drafted in to help respond to the crisis. 

UN agencies in Greece have expressed concern at the effect that the COVID-19 pandemic is having on the education of refugee children in the country, as a charity partner warns that funding for educational programmes is on the verge of running out.

Two UN agency chiefs are pledging to accelerate work to expand refugee children’s access to protection, education, clean water and sanitation, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread across the globe.  

As COVID-19 continues to take lives and change communities around the world, the virus is also creating massive protection risks for women and girls forced to flee their homes, a top official at the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Monday, stressing that global protection staff are on high alert and adapting life-saving support programmes for those subjected to violence. 

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has expanded the scope of its Global Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan (SPRP), to include far-reaching interventions that aim to mitigate the dire health and socio-economic impacts of the pandemic, the agency said on Wednesday.

Migrants and refugees hosted at UN-run reception centres in Bosnia-Herzegovina, are learning to cope with the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

With COVID-19 already having a significant impact on its field operations, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has outlined a series of measures it is taking to respond to the public health emergency and prevent further spread.