Migrants and Refugees

The small amounts of $200 or $300 that each migrant sends home make up about 60 per cent of the family’s household income.
IFAD/Christine Nesbitt

Remittances matter: 8 facts you don’t know about the money migrants send back home

15 June 2019
Global

This Sunday marks the second International Day of Family Remittances, observed every year on 16 June, in recognition of the fundamental contribution of migrant workers to their families and communities back home.

An average of 1,650 refugees and migrants from Venezuela continue to arrive each day in Ecuador. (4 June 2019)
© UNHCR/Santiago Escobar-Jarami

Thursday’s Daily Brief: Albinism, displacement in Central America, family-friendly nations, updates on the Gulf and Darfur

13 June 2019
Global

This Thursday, top stories includes: International Albinism Awareness Day; the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, appealing for regional talks on Central America forced displacement; updates on the latest attack on oil tankers in the Gulf and on recent clashes in Darfur; and a new report by UNICEF on the best and worst "family-friendly" nations.

Migrants look out to sea in Lesvos, Greece (file).
IOM/Amanda Nero

Tragedy of Mediterranean deaths continues, as seven drown, 57 rescued: UN migration agency

11 June 2019
Europe

A rescue operation on the Mediterranean concluded on Tuesday with confirmation that seven people drowned and 57 were rescued, following a shipwreck off the Greek island of Lesvos, the UN migration agency, IOM, said.

A migrant from Niger rests his hand on a gate inside a detention centre, in Libya, in 2017. He was arrested and detained before he was able to board a boat that was crossing to Italy.
© UNICEF/UN052682/Romenzi

Libya’s migrants and refugees with tuberculosis ‘left to die’ in detention centres

7 June 2019
Africa

Migrants and refugees suffering from tuberculosis are being left “effectively to die” in a Libyan detention centre south of Tripoli, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Friday, citing reports that those returned to shore by the coastguard have been disappeared or sold to traffickers.

An average of 1,650 refugees and migrants from Venezuela continue to arrive each day in Ecuador. (4 June 2019)
© UNHCR/Santiago Escobar-Jarami

Four million have now fled Venezuela, UN ramps up aid to children who remain

7 June 2019
Americas

The number of people who have left Venezuela to escape the country’s ongoing political and economic crisis, has reached some four million, the UN announced on Friday.

Children fleeing the escalating violence in Idlib take shelter in an overcrowded IDP camp in the Atmeh village, close to the Turkish border in the Syrian Arab Republic. (May 2019)
UNICEF/Watad

Vital food crops destroyed in Syria amid upsurge in fighting across Idlib, Hama

4 June 2019
Middle East

Thousands of acres of crops have been destroyed in Syria’s Idlib and north Hama provinces amid ongoing deadly violence, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday, in a call to the warring parties to stop using food security to hold people “hostage”.