Refugee advocate shares his surprising journey to permanent residency in Canada
By Susan Pedwell Living in Canada, Mustafa Alio hadn’t the faintest idea he was about to become a refugee. Mustafa left Syria in 2007 as an international student. After the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011, if he returned home he would be tortured and most likely...
UNHCR and IOM call for urgent disembarkation of rescued migrants and refugees in Central Mediterranean Sea
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, the International Organization of Migration (IOM) are calling for the immediate disembarkation of more than 400 rescued migrants and refugees currently on board three vessels in the Central Mediterranean. A group of some 27 migrants and...
COVID-19 driving Nicaraguan refugees to hunger and desperation
This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson Shabia Mantoo – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at today’s press briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. More than three quarters of Nicaraguan refugees and asylum seekers in Costa Rica are...
Schools caught up in armed conflict sweeping across the Sahel
By end-2019, more than 3,300 schools were shut, affecting almost 650,000 children and more than 16,000 teachers. By Ag Ahmed in Dori, Burkina Faso At the end of the 2019 academic year, just as he was preparing to take his primary school leaving exams in northern...
Congolese mothers trek to safety in South Sudan
As South Sudan keeps its borders open to refugees during the coronavirus pandemic, mothers fleeing violence in the DR Congo find a safe haven with their children. By Giulia Raffaelli and Aisha Jummai Abdulsalam in Yambio, South Sudan When armed men attacked her...
Grandi ends Lebanon visit with call to help country in its hour of need
With country reeling from Beirut explosion, COVID-19 and financial crisis, UNHCR Head calls on global community to support Lebanon and its large refugee population. By Warda Al-Jawahiry and Houssam Hariri in Beirut, Lebanon UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo...
‘You could see the happiness on their faces’
A programme underway to relocate 1,600 unaccompanied children from the Greek Islands is already transforming lives. By Matthew Mpoke Bigg Ahmad*, a boy from Afghanistan, has no hesitation in summing up how relocation from a squalid camp on a Greek island to the Grand...
Nicaraguan refugee heals wounds of persecution in Costa Rica
For Catalina, seeking medical care in Nicaragua was too risky. In Costa Rica it was unaffordable – until she became one of 6,000 refugees given access to the public health care system. By Jean Pierre Mora in San José, Costa Rica It had been many years since Catalina*...