A veteran Hungarian diplomat was appointed President of the forthcoming session of the UN General Assembly during an official ceremony in New York on Tuesday.
Hungary’s Foreign Minister on Thursday evening called for equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines and warned that without it, “massive waves of migrants will hit the road” in search of healthcare and relief from the pandemic’s economic fallout.
In today’s Daily Brief: the DR Congo Ebola outbreak is officially declared an international Public Health Emergency; UN Youth Envoy briefs Security Council; an ‘exciting and potentially defining’ moment for Sudan, says UN adviser; more cooperation’s needed to secure arrest of war crimes fugitives; and politicizing the migrant ‘crisis’ in Hungary
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.
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”.
New laws in Hungary, and Government attacks on civil society in the country, fuel “hostility, xenophobia, and discrimination against migrants, asylum seekers, refugees and all those trying to provide them support”, say a team of independent human rights experts mandated by the UN Human Rights Council.
Some 25,000 refugee and migrant children stranded at transit points across Europe are at risk of emotional distress due to uncertainty about their future, the UN children’s fund, UNICEF, has reported.
These children are living in limbo in countries such as Greece, Bulgaria and Hungary because they do not know if they will be able to move on to other parts of the continent or to reunite with family members settled there.
Alpha Diallo asked UNICEF’s Sarah Crowe what teams on the ground have been seeing.
Duration: 2:38”
The number of refugee children in detention centres in 12 countries fell by 14 per cent over the past two years, according to a report launched by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
The study details achievements made by countries that have adopted a UNHCR strategy aimed at ending the detention of asylum seekers and refugees.
Hungary is being urged to refrain from “policies and practices that promote intolerance”.
The call came from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), following the Hungarian government’s launch of a new campaign that portrays those fleeing war and conflict as criminals, invaders and terrorists.
UNHCR says the public outreach effort, which was launched this month, promotes fear and fuels xenophobia against refugees and migrants.
