The number of refugees given shelter in safe host countries plunged last year because of pandemic border restrictions, which continue to hamper the resettlement of vulnerable people.
The number of people fleeing wars, violence, persecution, and human rights violations, rose last year to nearly 82.4 million people, a further four percent increase on top of the already record-high of 79.5 million, recorded at the end of 2019.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has appealed to the Government of the United States to “swiftly lift” the public health-related asylum restrictions that remain in effect at the southern border, and to restore access to asylum for the people “whose lives depend on it”.
UN refugee agency, UNHCR, called on Thursday for an end to “systematic” expulsions and pushbacks of refugees and asylum-seekers at Europe’s land and sea borders.
The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) is calling on the European Union (EU) to make 2020 “the year of change for robust refugee protection”. On Thursday, the agency issued a set of new recommendations, as Croatia and German preside over the EU Council during the next 12 months.
A spike in the number of refugees reaching Greek island reception centres is likely to worsen the situation in already “dangerously overcrowded” facilities there, the UN refugee agency said on Tuesday.
Expressing deep concern over how migration and migrants themselves are being politicized and scapegoated in Hungary, an independent United Nations human rights expert on Wednesday urged the Government to immediately end its “crisis” approach to the issue.
Deeply concerned about the new rule barring from asylum the majority of people crossing the southern land border of the United States, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has warned that the ‘severe’ measure will endanger vulnerable people in need of international protection from violence or persecution.
The UN human rights office (OHCHR) said on Friday it was alarmed by reports that migrants and asylum seekers who are being held in Hungarian detention centres are being “deliberately deprived of food in contravention of international laws and standards”.
