UN Refugee Agency

In Russia’s War, Ukraine’s Cultural Strengths Are Now Targets

• March 30, 2022

In Europe and around the world, the landmark drama theater in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol will long be associated with crimes against humanity, whether or not a formal trial of the Russians who bombed it is ever held. At least 300 people, including many children — the final toll is not known — …

Peace and Security

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Counting Ukraine’s Dead, Wounded, Refugees and Displaced So Far

Dr. Catherine Mullaly

• March 1, 2022

Ukraine’s population data are rapidly changing as the war rages in its country since Russia began its aerial, ground and sea assaults late last week. Within 24 hours of issuing its first report, the UN Refugee Agency documented that 368,000 people had fled from Ukraine to Poland, Hungary, Romania, Moldova and other countries and …

Health and Population, Humanitarian Aid, Peace and Security

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Congolese Refugees’ UN Grants Offer Grocery Lifelines for Poor Zimbabweans

Nyasha Bhobo

• February 21, 2022

HARARE, Zimbabwe — In Zimbabwe’s city townships, where high food prices exact a toll on poor households, grocery shops run by entrepreneurial Congolese refugees defend against hunger. “The Congolese shops, they feed my family!” said Sara Moyo, 27, a mother of two in Stoneridge Park, a suburb in the south of Harare, the capital …

Africa, Refugees

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COVID-19

Pandemic Relief: Beirut Test-Drives Mobile Medicine for Migrants

Maria Luisa Gambale

• March 10, 2021

Through the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, Beirut was spared the catastrophic caseloads that brought many cities around the world to their knees throughout the spring and early summer of 2020, but the port blast on Aug. 4 changed all that. The explosion itself killed at least 200 people, left 300,000 people homeless …

Cities, Covid-19, Health and Population

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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 Change, Middle East, Refugees, SDGs, 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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THIS WEEK @UN

UN to the Rescue in Beirut, a Billion Children Out of School, Hiroshima Anniversary

Allison Lecce

• August 7, 2020

A major explosion rocks a Beirut port, killing at least 154 people, and the United Nations and others come to the rescue; and Secretary-General António Guterres calls for the reopening of schools worldwide, “once local transmission of Covid-19 is under control.” Facing a “global catastrophe,” more than one billion students have been physically shut …

This Week @UN

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COVID-19

Never Underestimate the Grit of Malawians to Survive the Coronavirus

Antonio Menendez de Zubillaga

• May 25, 2020

LILONGWE, Malawi — Ever since an expatriate tourism adviser labeled Malawi the “warm heart of Africa” in the 1970s, Malawians have worn the title proudly, sparing no effort to welcome visitors with open arms. My family and I felt immediately at home here in Lilongwe, the capital. We arrived in April 2018, as part …

Africa, Covid-19

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COVID-19

Quarantined and Stalked by Covid-19, UN Field Staff Live With Fear and Anxiety

Barbara Crossette

• May 11, 2020

Far from United Nations headquarters in New York and its offices in other cities around the world, many thousands of UN staff members are adjusting to new, more disturbing and dangerous realities in the era of Covid-19. Daily life is taking a psychological toll in both humanitarian and peacekeeping operations, prompting more focus on …

Africa, Covid-19

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With Trump’s Human-Rights Policies, Religious ‘Values’ Take Priority

Barbara Crossette

• June 7, 2018

For almost three centuries, through street protests, court battles and a civil war, the United States has sporadically but steadily advanced and expanded human-rights protections and commitments in domestic and foreign policies. Now Donald Trump and the most conservative, ideologically driven officials on his team want to turn back this record in fundamental ways, …

Gender Violence, Health and Population, Human Rights, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

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WORLDVIEWS

Brazil Can Lead the Way on Managing the World’s Refugee Crisis

Adriana Erthal Abdenur and Maiara Folly

• June 5, 2018

RIO DE JANEIRO — Only weeks from the start of the 2018 World Cup, soccer teams of refugees from Mali, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria, Angola, Burkina Faso and Gambia who had migrated to Brazil became the protagonists in a recent soccer competition: the Multicultural Cup, organized by Instituto Adus, a nongovernmental …

Migration, Refugees, US-UN Relations, WORLDVIEWS

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TAKE A LOOK

Refugee Health: A Defining Issue of the Century

Barbara Crossette

• May 11, 2017

In mid-2016, the United Nations refugee agency and Ugandan officials made a horrific discovery. Cholera was being introduced in a migrant settlement by refugees from South Sudan who were fleeing the extreme violence in their imploding country. In barely six weeks, beginning last July, 80,000 South Sudanese had arrived in Uganda when the outbreak …

Health and Population, Migration, Myanmar, Refugees, Take a Look, US-UN Relations

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WORLDVIEWS

The UN Should Just Say No to Returning Refugees to Danger

Bill Frelick

• February 27, 2017

Pressure is building on Afghan and Somali refugees to go home, even if they no longer have homes to return to. It is not surprising that this pressure is coming from governments that have been hosting huge numbers of refugees and want to end what seems to them like a never-ending burden. What is …

Human Rights, Migration, Refugees, WORLDVIEWS

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Fleeing Violence, Syrian Women Try to Cope in Turkey and Lebanon

Johanna Higgs and Liga Rudzite

• April 6, 2016

GAZIANTEP, Turkey — Amima and Fatima Jebari are Syrian sisters who fled last year to the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep, near the Syrian border, after the Free Syrian Army entered their village in the north, they said, and violence ensued between the rebel group and the government forces of Bashar al-Assad in the …

Gender Violence, Human Rights, Middle East, Refugees, Women

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In UN Refugee Camps, Sports Soothe Trauma for Children

Laura E. Kirkpatrick

• January 27, 2016

“Sport is the only area of human existence that has achieved universal law,” said Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee when he announced that elite athletes who were refugees could compete in the 2016 Olympics under that flag. “Regardless of where in the world we practice sport, the rules are the …