With news footage showing migrants on the border between Belarus and Poland attempting to dodge teargas and make their way through razor wire, UN agencies called for an “immediate de-escalation”, following weeks of rising tension.
Greece must take immediate action to end the violence against migrants and asylum seekers at the border between Turkey and Greece, an independent UN human rights expert said on Monday, expressing alarm at reports of violence at the hands of some Greek security officers and unidentified armed men.
Although migrant apprehensions at the US-Mexican border decreased in 2017, the number of people who died while making the crossing remained high, the UN Migration Agency (IOM) reports.
Data published this week by its Missing Migrants Project puts the death toll at 412 last year, compared to 398 in 2016.
Dianne Penn has been speaking to Joel Millman, an IOM spokesperson based in Geneva.
A build-up of migrants and refugees on the border between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia could turn into a humanitarian crisis, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) is warning.
Around 9,000 people have gathered at the Idomeni camp, mainly Syrians but also Afghans and Iraqis. More are arriving every day.
They’re attempting to travel deeper into Europe but a chain fence with barbed wire is blocking their progress.
Concern is growing for some 12,000 people who are trying to flee Syria and are stranded in remote areas around the north eastern border of Jordan.
The UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, said on Tuesday that these people are facing deteriorating humanitarian conditions and their lives will be “at risk’ in the coming months, as winter sets in.
UNHCR is calling on the government of Jordan to take in the stranded refugees.
Another xenophobic attack in South Africa and refugees on the move across the Malawi border are a major cause for concern, according to UN agencies in the region.
More than 100 refugees fled into Malawi from Mozambique in July following clashes between government forces and gunmen from the former rebel movement, RENAMO.
And further south, hundreds of immigrants in the South African city of Grahamstown fled their homes after coming under attack.
Europe can’t be divided and leave refugees to fend for themselves in winter, said the president of the European Union on Sunday night.
Jean-Claude Juncker was speaking at a special summit of European leaders along with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the EU border agency.
The meeting of eleven EU countries and Balkan neighbours agreed to create reception centres for 100,000 refugees along the east-west corridor between the Middle East and western Europe.
Matthew Wells reports.
The humanitarian situation in Pakistan has a “positive trajectory” despite an ongoing crisis, according to a senior UN official who has just visited the country.
Five million Pakistanis have been displaced by conflict in recent years, but many are now returning home.
The country is also sheltering Afghan refugees who have fled insecurity over the border.
John Ging is the UN humanitarian office, OCHA’s Operations Director.
Daniel Dickinson asked him for an update on the crisis.
