Refugees

Afghan Students Reach Kyrgyzstan After a Risky Journey

• October 13, 2021

Nearly 200 students from Afghanistan, escaping the Taliban’s tightening grip on education, have been safely evacuated from Kabul under an ambitious plan led by the American University of Central Asia and the Kyrgyzstan government. About 60 percent of the students, undergraduates and graduates, are women, according to the university. “Yes, we have largely succeeded,” …

Asia, Education, Refugees

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The UN Refugee Agency’s Bold Plan to Manage the Crisis of Climate Migrants

Dali ten Hove

• August 1, 2021

As the world inches closer to catastrophic global heating and vulnerable communities from Mali to Myanmar are already suffering the consequences, the United Nations Refugee Agency has been grappling with the growing role of climate change as a driver of displacement. In a first for the agency, it has begun considering whether international refugee …

Human Rights, Refugees, US Foreign Relations

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Myanmar Votes in a Sea of Troubles at Home and Abroad

Barbara Crossette

• October 20, 2020

A decade after the first democratic reforms began taking shape after long years of harsh military rule in Myanmar, its citizens are preparing to vote in a national election on Nov. 8. It will be an important test for the country and its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. Her once-shining image as she swept …

Asia, Governance, Refugees

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THIS WEEK @UN

India’s Reliance on Fossil Fuels, Casting Light on UN Counterterrorism Ops, US Asylum Seekers Stuck in Mexico

Allison Lecce

• August 29, 2020

US asylum seekers pushed back into Mexico in unprecedented numbers amid Covid-19; an investigation into the mysterious work of the richly financed UN counterterrorism operations; chastising India for its support of fossil fuels; and a UN envoy’s assessment of the new United Arab Emirates-Israeli pact. Greetings from This Week @UN, our summary highlighting the most …

Climate and Environment, Middle East, Refugees, Terrorism, This Week @UN, US Foreign Relations

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COVID-19

In Mexico, the UN Refugee Agency Alleviates a Crisis Created by the Trump Administration

Maurizio Guerrero

• August 26, 2020

“Yes, there’s always the fear of being kidnapped,” said Óscar, a 30-year old asylum seeker who fled political persecution in Cuba in May 2019 and landed in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juárez, where violent crime and gang activity are common. Óscar, who used a pseudonym to protect his privacy, knew of asylum …

Covid-19, Human Rights, Refugees, US Foreign Relations

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For Census-Takers Worldwide, 2020 Could Be a Rough Year

Barbara Crossette

• December 21, 2019

For more than a week, protesters of all faiths have been marching by the hundreds of thousands on the streets of many Indian cities and towns to condemn a divisive new citizenship law targeting Muslims across the South Asian region. The trouble had been brewing for months, after the Hindu nationalist government of Prime …

Development, Refugees, Sustainable Development Goals

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WORLDVIEWS

Myanmar’s Neighbors Must Build Trust Among Rohingya Refugees

Noeleen Heyzer

• November 10, 2019

At the 33d summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Singapore last year, the issue of Myanmar’s Rakhine/Rohingya crisis was high on the agenda. The chairman’s closing statement expressed the group’s readiness to support Myanmar in repatriating refugees by conducting a needs-assessment overview in Rakhine State. The Muslim Rohingya had fled ethnic …

Asia, Refugees, WORLDVIEWS

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Migration and Technology: Lessons From the Brazil-Venezuela Border

Adriana Erthal Abdenur and Lycia Brasil

• July 25, 2019

RIO DE JANEIRO — DoNotPay, an app dubbed “the world’s first robot lawyer” by its developer, Joshua Browder, has been helping refugees in the United States and Canada to complete immigration applications. There’s also the International Organization for Migration’s MigApp, which fills in the blanks on topics ranging from money transfer to visa rules …

Migration, Refugees

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How Many Immigrant Children Is the US Detaining? Nobody Knows

Barbara Crossette

• January 22, 2019

Sloppy or nonexistent identification systems at the United States-Mexican border, no organized tracking of children snatched from their parents — some often too young to say who they are — and the withholding of important information by Trump officials, frequently defying a federal court order and a presidential decree six months ago, have come …

Human Rights, Migration, Refugees

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Where Refugee Scholars, Artists and Activists Find Safety and Thrive

Barbara Crossette

• November 25, 2018

Ahmad Sadiddin was an agronomist in a region that history books call the Fertile Crescent, an arc around the eastern Mediterranean where settled farming began in ancient times. Iraq and Syria were once part of that productive land before it was torn apart by the horrors of dictatorship, civil wars and the reductionism and …

Refugees

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GEOPOLITICS

Europe and Others Help Fund the UN Palestinian Agency, Filling US Void

Stéphanie Fillion

• September 27, 2018

The European Union, Germany, Norway, Ireland and Kuwait stepped in this week to donate a total of $118 million in financing to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (Unrwa), after the United States cut $304 million of its annual support to the agency for this year. …

Climate and Environment, Geopolitics, Middle East, Refugees, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

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TAKE A LOOK

Two Health Alerts: Resurgent Polio and Antibiotic Resistance

Barbara Crossette

• August 23, 2018

Recent research reports published by The Lancet could make a lot of people rethink the assumption that once a disease has been declared eradicated, that’s it. Done. A recent resurge in cases of polio in several countries and concern in Europe that antibiotic resistance is being bought there by refugees and migrants are becoming …

Health and Population, Refugees, Take a Look

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GEOPOLITICS

Rohingya Refugees Look to Washington and Find a Vacuum

Tino Calabia

• July 30, 2018

This August marks a year since a military crackdown forced at least 700,000 Rohingya to flee Myanmar for Bangladesh, joining hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who had already taken refuge there, totaling 1.1 million people encamped in Cox’s Bazar, according to a Bangladesh count done this July. But you would never know from the …

Asia, Geopolitics, Refugees, US Foreign Relations

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UN to Rohingya: You Can’t Go Home Safely Any Time Soon

Barbara Crossette

• July 15, 2018

Among refugee advocates there has been a growing concern that recent agreements among regional governments and the United Nations on a framework for mitigating the Rohingya crisis could prompt at least some of the million-plus people who have fled the deadly military pogrom in Myanmar to consider risking a return to try to rebuild …

Asia, Gender Violence, Human Rights, Refugees

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GEOPOLITICS

Washington to UN Refugee Agency: If You Want Our Money, Put Our Name on It

Stéphanie Fillion

• July 10, 2018

The United States is the biggest donor to the UN Refugee Agency, and the Trump administration wants the world to know it. A new framework, or agreement, signed by the State Department and the refugee agency (UNHCR) requires it to acknowledge US contributions in most — and eventually all — of its public-information materials. …