Cyclone Mocha lashed Myanmar’s Rakhine state on Sunday with devastating winds and heavy rain, killing at least six people and causing extensive damage, the UN and local media reported. The big picture: The storm, which packed maximum sustained winds of 155 mph as it moved ashore just north of the …
Read More »Fighting rages in Khartoum, civilians say they have been forgotten
Heavy gunfire echoed around Khartoum again on Friday as civilians trapped in the Sudanese capital said the army and rival paramilitary forces were fighting on and ignoring their plight. “It’s been four days without electricity and our situation is difficult… We are the victims of a war that we aren’t …
Read More »Hundreds of thousands displaced as eastern DRC conflict worsens
The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) has warned of a growing humanitarian catastrophe in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where fighting between government forces and armed groups has caused hundreds of thousands of people to flee. UNHCR spokesperson Matthew Saltmarsh said on Friday the violence had prompted …
Read More »Turkey-Syria quake: Two women survive for days as death toll tops 24,000
Rescuers in Turkey have pulled out two women alive who were trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings for 122 hours after the region’s deadliest earthquake in two decades. A day after Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized the response of rescue and relief forces and said that they should have reacted …
Read More »Boat with 185 Rohingya refugees lands in Indonesia’s Aceh
A boat with 185 Rohingya refugees landed on the shores of Indonesia’s Aceh province on Sunday, a local disaster agency official said, following hundreds who arrived late last year fleeing desperate conditions in refugee camps in Bangladesh. Over half of those who arrived around 2:30 p.m. Sunday were women and …
Read More »‘Strategic mistake’: Iran strongly condemns UNHRC resolution
Iran’s Foreign Ministry has vehemently condemned the meeting and resolution of the United Nations Human Rights Council, noting that “multifaceted political goals” are behind these anti-Iranian measures. In a statement late on Thursday, the ministry blasted the measure of a few Western countries in “imposing” an anti-Iranian resolution to the …
Read More »Number of refugees fleeing Ukraine war exceeds 6 million -UN agency
The number of people who have fled Ukraine to escape war has passed 6 million, in Europe’s worst refugee crisis since the end of World War Two, a U.N. refugee agency said on Thursday. Russia’s invasion, which started on Feb. 24, has triggered a massive displacement of people, including more …
Read More »More than 3,000 people lost in sea crossings to Europe in 2021: UN
More than 3,000 refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers died or went missing last year while trying to reach Europe via Mediterranean and Atlantic sea routes, a UN refugee agency report showed on Friday, reporting the highest toll in recent years. Thousands of Africans take long, perilous journeys to Europe each …
Read More »UN refugee agency ‘shocked’ at Rohingya deaths in Malaysia escape
Six people, including two children, were killed trying to cross a highway after hundreds fled a detention centre amid a riot. The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) has said it is “shocked and deeply saddened” by the deaths of six Rohingya, including two children, who died on Wednesday in an …
Read More »Afghan Taliban leaders appeal for help as migrant crisis looms
Senior Taliban officials appealed on Saturday for international help to combat a deepening economic crisis that has fuelled fears of another refugee exodus from Afghanistan. The comments, at a special meeting to mark the U.N.’s international migrants day, underlined the new Islamist Taliban government’s push to engage with the world …
Read More »Mystery disease kills 89 people in South Sudan
A yet-to-be-identified disease has killed at least 89 people in Fangak in the South Sudan’s state of Jonglei, a World Health Organization (WHO) official told the BBC. The mysterious deaths happened in an area recently hit by flooding. Local health officials have ruled out cholera as the cause, the British …
Read More »UN refugee agency says number of displaced people worldwide tops 84 million
The number of people around the world forced to abandon their homes likely increased to more than 84 million in the first half of this year, an increase fueled in particular by conflicts in Africa, the UN refugee agency said Thursday. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said the number …
Read More »UN signs deal with Bangladesh to help Rohingya refugees on remote island
UN officials signed a deal with Bangladesh on Saturday to help provide basic services to thousands of Rohingya Muslim refugees who have been moved to camps on a remote island in the Bay of Bengal. The Bangladeshi government has moved nearly 19,000 Rohingya refugees to Bhasan Char island from border …
Read More »Merkel spoke to Pakistan’s Khan, Emir of Qatar on Afghanistan
German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Kahn, the Emir of Qatar and the head of the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) on Tuesday evening, her spokesman said on Wednesday. “The chancellor spoke yesterday, in the early evening, with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Kahn as well as with …
Read More »Eritrean refugees in Ethiopian capital protest insecurity at Tigray camps
Hundreds of Eritrean refugees protested in the Ethiopian capital on Thursday, calling on the United Nations refugee agency to relocate friends and family who they say are trapped in two refugee camps by fighting in the Tigray region. Clashes between armed groups have escalated in and around the camps – …
Read More »UNHCR reiterates concerns about refugees in Ethiopia
The United Nations Refugee Agency has voiced concern about the situation of refugees in Ethiopia, as an armed conflict worsens in the Horn of Africa country. The UNHCR said on Tuesday that it was concerned about the 24,000 Eritrean refugees in two camps in the Tigray region, saying they were …
Read More »Afghanistan on brink of humanitarian crisis-UN refugee agency
More Afghans are likely to flee their homes due to escalating violence, the U.N. refugee agency warned on Tuesday, as the Taliban take control of more territory in response to the withdrawal of U.S.-led foreign forces. “Afghanistan is on the brink of another humanitarian crisis. This can be avoided. This …
Read More »Refugees in India, elsewhere hit hard by COVID-19 impact -rights report
At least 200,000 refugees are among the worst affected by India’s COVID-19 outbreak as they have no access to welfare schemes or free healthcare, a report by an international consortium of rights groups said on Wednesday. “The stateless in India have not received economic relief packages provided by the government…they …
Read More »HRW demands probe into UN ‘improper’ sharing of Rohingya data
Human Rights Watch (HRW) demands an investigation into the United Nations’ data collection on Rohingya Muslim refugees in Bangladesh, saying the UN refugee agency has “improperly” shared the information with authorities in Myanmar. The UN Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, has registered hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees in Bangladeshi camps …
Read More »Close to 10,000 Mozambicans fleeing violence forcibly removed from Tanzania – U.N.
Almost 10,000 Mozambicans have been forcibly removed from Tanzania so far this year after fleeing a deadly Islamist insurgency in their homeland, a spokesperson for the U.N. refugee agency said on Friday. Mozambique’s northern-most province of Cabo Delgado has been the focus of an insurgency linked to the Islamic State …
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