Migrants and Refugees

A UNHCR officer helps register Rohingya refugees in Kutupalong Refugee Camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. (24 July 2019)
© UNHCR/Caroline Gluck

More than half a million Rohingya in Bangladesh get ID cards for first time: UN refugee agency

9 August 2019
Asia Pacific

More than 500,000 Rohingya refugees who fled a brutal crackdown in Myanmar two years ago, have received identification cards that the UN insisted on Friday were critical to safeguarding their right to return home.

Refugee women show their support for UNHCR's anti-trafficking campaign at Wad Sharife camp in east Sudan. (24 July 2018)
© UNHCR/Bahia Egeh

Conflict, climate change among factors that increase ‘desperation that enables human trafficking to flourish’, says UN chief

30 July 2019
Global

To mark the World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has stressed that “human trafficking is a heinous crime that affects every region of the world” – especially women and children.

Venezuelans queue up to get an entry stamp in their passports at the Ecuador-Peru border. (13 June 2019)
© UNHCR/Hélène Caux

Record displacement shows ‘we're almost unable to make peace’, warns UN refugee agency chief

19 June 2019
Global

A record 70.8 million people fled war, persecution and conflict in 2018, UN refugee agency chief Filippo Grandi said on Wednesday, appealing for greater international solidarity to counter the fact that “we have become almost unable to make peace”. 

Students watch a performance by their peers at Barros Barreto School, in Salvador, Brazil. The performance tackled social issues such as racism and gender discrimination.. Photo: UNICEF/Claudio Versiani
UNICEF/Claudio Versiani

Marking international day, UN experts call for urgent action to end racial discrimination, in wake of New Zealand anti-Muslim attack

21 March 2019
Global

States must take urgent action, to “stem the tide of hate and discrimination” and ramping up of “ethno-nationalist populism”, which helped fuel the deadly shootings in two New Zealand mosques last Friday by a self-declared white supremacist, several top UN officials and human rights experts have stressed, marking the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

The Global Compact for Migration was adopted in the UNGA Vote: Favor 152 Against 5 Abstention 12
UN Photo/Manuel Elías

General Assembly officially adopts roadmap for migrants to improve safety, ease suffering

19 December 2018
Global

The United Nations General Assembly officially endorsed the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration on Wednesday, a non-binding agreement adopted in Marrakech on 10 December by 164 Member States, and described by UN chief António Guterres as a “roadmap to prevent suffering and chaos”.

Students using tablets from the Instant Network Schools (INS) project in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya.
UNHCR/Catherine Wachiaya

Half the world’s refugee children not in school, UN agency finds

29 August 2018
Global

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.

Louise Arbour, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for International Migration.
UN Photo/Mark Garten

Safe and orderly migration is ‘in everybody’s interest’, says senior UN official

12 July 2018
Global

International migration “has been with us forever”, and a safe and orderly means of facilitating it is “in everybody’s interest”, said a UN envoy.

Eduardo, 31, with his daughter Sara at his house in Chiapas, Mexico. Eduardo together with his wife and four daughters, escaped increasing gang violence from El Salvador and have been recognized as refugees in Mexico.
UNHCR/Markel Redondo

US migrant children policy reversal, still ‘fails’ thousands of detained youngsters: UN rights experts

22 June 2018
Americas

The United States government decision to end its border policy of forcibly separating migrant children from their parents, does not help thousands of youngsters already in detention, who should be released and reunited with their families, a group of UN rights experts said on Friday.

A Rohingya refugee child is administered an oral polio vaccine at an immunization centre in Bormapara makeshift settlement, Cox's Bazar district, Bangladesh, Thursday 21 December 2017.
UNICEF/Bashir Ahmed Sujan

Dangers persist for nearly a million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh: WHO

8 May 2018
Asia Pacific

Renewed efforts are underway in Bangladesh to protect nearly one million Myanmar refugees from cholera, amid a warning from the UN health agency on Tuesday that “we’re not out of the woods yet”.

Venezuelans arrive in Pacaraima, border city with Venezuela, and wait at the Federal Police, the entity responsible for receiving Venezuelans seeking asylum or special stay permits in Brazil, 16 February 2018.
© UNHCR/Reynesson Damasceno

UN agency issues refugee protection guidance for thousands of Venezuelans fleeing crisis-torn country

13 March 2018
Americas

As deepening economic woes force thousands of Venezuelans to flee the crisis-gripped country, the United Nations on Tuesday issued guidance on treating the population as “refugees,” while the head of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned that the outflow into neighboring countries such as Colombia constitutes a “humanitarian disaster.”