Migrants and Refugees

A woman holds her child in Balukhali refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar.
UN Women/Allison Joyce

World expects unity ‘where humanity is most wounded and trampled’, Grandi tells Security Council

18 June 2020

With nearly 80 million people now living in forced exile, the head of the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, urged the Security Council on Thursday to overcome its differences and start resolving conflicts so that refugees and internally displaced persons can finally return home.

During one year the documentary followed the lives of Syrian student Ibrahim (left) and Iraqi physiotherapist Qutaiba (right).
Juan Sarmiento

Building a cinematic bond with refugees, in a time of crisis

19 May 2020
Global

A Brazilian filmmaker is hoping that the uncertainty brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic will generate more empathy and solidarity towards others, including refugees, an optimistic position also held by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in the South American country.

Secretary-General António Guterres addresses the International Conference on 40 Years of Hosting Afghan Refugees in Pakistan, in Islamabad.
UN Photo/Mark Garten

World must ‘step up’, match Pakistan’s compassion for refugees, says UN chief

17 February 2020
Global

Pakistan’s solidarity and compassion for hosting Afghan refugees is a remarkable blueprint that the rest of the world should follow.  

IOM helped Mohammed Ahmed to set up a shop in Omduram market, near Khartoum, Sudan. The initiative involves the use of mobile money to buy goods
IOM/ Yasir Elbakri

How mobile money is rebuilding lives in Sudan

30 January 2020
Africa

When Mohammed Ahmed left Sudan in search of better life, he couldn’t have imagined that he would find financial security back home. But, some four years later, he now runs a thriving business, thanks to an innovative scheme involving the UN migration agency (IOM), based on the use of mobile money.

Still of Isaiah Bahati (left) and Jean-Pierre Ntegyeye, from One Way Ticket, a documentary about two Congolese refugees resettling in the US.
IOM/Gregoire Gosset

After 20 years of misery as refugees, a one-way ticket to the ‘miracle’ of resettlement

21 December 2019
Africa

Although they spent 20 years living in a refugee camp in Uganda, Jean-Pierre Ntegyeye and Isaiah Bahati never gave up hope of leaving for a better life. Today, with help from the UN migration agency, IOM, their dream has come true, but they haven’t forgotten the plight of those left behind. Their story is told in a new movie, One Way Ticket, screened as part of the Global Migration Film Festival (GMFF).

Steven of Venezuela and three friends attempt to hitchhike to the Paramo de Berlin (3,000m), the highest peak on their journey from Cucuta, Venezuela, to Bogota, Colombia.
IOM/Muse Mohammed

Misery for Venezuelans continues ahead of 2020 elections: UN rights chief Bachelet

18 December 2019
Americas

Demonstrations in Venezuela must be allowed to take place ahead of elections in 2020, the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Wednesday, citing continued reports of harassment, threats, and detention by intelligence services and security forces.

19-year-old Najla Umda Adam Suleiman, fled with her family to Chad when she was only three years old after the conflict broke out in Darfur.
© UNHCR/Modesta Ndubi

World must ‘reboot’ approach to refugees, first UN Global Forum hears

17 December 2019

The world needs to transform the way it responds to refugee situations and do more for the struggling countries that shelter almost all of them, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Tuesday, at a high-level forum seeking solutions to a decade of extraordinary mass displacement.

PLURAL+ Youth Video Festival winners at UN Headquarters who were selected for their coverage of migration, diversity and social inclusion. The winning-videos were chosen among 1200+ submissions from almost 70 countries.
UNAOC

UN film festival encourages young people to promote peace, dialogue and empathy

16 November 2019
Global

Demonstrating empathy, humour and intelligence, a group of young film-makers have been recognized for their short videos, which tackle the weighty issues of discrimination, intolerance and misogyny in a creative and entertaining way, at a ceremony held at UN Headquarters.

In Binnish in the Syrian Arab Republic, internally displaced people from Idlib live in a destroyed school while a tanker provides them with water that children transport with small containers.
© UNICEF/Omar Haj Kadour

Hundreds of thousands of civilians at risk in Syria amid ongoing violence in northeast and northwest

8 November 2019
Middle East

Almost daily violence targeting built-up areas and health facilities in Syria continues to threaten the lives of civilians there, UN rights experts and humanitarians said on Friday.

The former UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo in February 1995.
©UNHCR/Panos Moumtzis

Tributes for ‘role model’ former UN refugee agency chief, Sadako Ogata

29 October 2019

The first woman to serve as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, has died in Tokyo at the age of 92, hailed by the UN Secretary-General on Tuesday as a “role model for people across the world.”