United Nations

Rokaya needed time to recover after illness forced her to quit as a live-in maid in Malaysia and return home to Indramayu, West Java. However, under pressure from her agent who claimed two million Rupiah for her initial placement, she accepted an offer of work in Erbil, Iraq. There, Ms. Rokaya...

28 March 2024Migrants and Refugees The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, and partners on Thursday appealed for $1.4 billion this year to support more than two million South Sudanese refugees in five African countries and local communities hosting them. Since the start of the conflict in South...

26 March 2024Migrants and Refugees One in three migrant deaths happens while people flee conflict, the UN migration agency, IOM, said on Tuesday. More than two in three migrants whose deaths have been documented remain unidentified. Last year was the deadliest on record, with 8,541...

Global perspective Human stories A group of displaced people hosted in a school in the centre of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. 13 March 2024Humanitarian Aid The number of internally displaced people around the world is at a record high – well over 70 million – it’s a global crisis that...

Nearly 8,600 people on the move died in 2023, a 20 per cent increase from 2022, according to the UN agency’s Missing Migrants Project online platform. It details the global movement of people risking their lives to escape conflict, economic crisis and natural disasters, including drought and...

“The agency will no longer have funding as of the end of February, so that means our operations would come to a halt during March,” said Dorothee Klaus, UNRWA Director in Lebanon, describing the “severe impact” of fresh budget cuts. The funding crisis stemmed from Israel’s allegations that a...

31 January 2024Migrants and Refugees Yul Brynner was a charismatic and engaging star of stage and screen, and in 1959, the United Nations asked him to lend his talents to support efforts to aid the world’s refugees. The Russian-born actor, filmmaker and photographer was appointed a special...

1 February 2024Migrants and Refugees Yul Brynner was a charismatic and engaging star of stage and screen, and in 1959, the United Nations asked him to lend his talents to support efforts to aid the world’s refugees. The Russian-born actor, filmmaker and photographer was appointed a special...

IOM underscored the need for regular migration pathways at a one-day summit in Rome hosted by Italy to boost development in Africa and curb migration flows. The A Bridge for Common Life conference represented a critical opportunity to examine “unified and sustainable mechanisms to stop further...

That’s according to Juliette Touma, Director of Communications for UNRWA, the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees, who spoke in depth to UN News’s Conor Lennon on Monday about her most recent visit to the Strip. The interview has been edited for clarity and length. “This was my second trip since...

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was addressing the World Health Organization (WHO) Executive Board when he said that “several outstanding issues” still needed to be resolved by governments and that time was “very short” to find consensus. “A failure to deliver the pandemic agreement and the...

Sri Lankan migrants who paid their life savings to people traffickers for perilous and unsuccessful sea crossings in an attempt to find a better life overseas have returned home thanks to the support of the UN migration agency, IOM.

27 December 2023Migrants and Refugees The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has appealed for action in the wake of a mob attack against refugees in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, on Wednesday. Hundreds of young people stormed a building basement where scores of Rohingya refugees were sheltered, according...

Global perspective Human stories Refugees in an inflatable boat approach the shores of the island of Lesbos, in northern Greece. 20 December 2023Migrants and Refugees The UN High Commissioner for Refugees on Wednesday welcomed a key deal by members of the European Union (EU) to...

In a message marking International Migrants Day, the UN chief emphasized that migration promotes the exchange of knowledge and contributes to economic growth, but at the same time, “poorly governed migration is a cause of great suffering.” “It forces people into the cruel realm of traffickers...

Speaking at the closing of the Global Refugee Forum, the Secretary-General said that protection and help for these most vulnerable of people, was “an obligation shared by all of humanity”. He was speaking after three days of intensive activity geared to finding solutions and building...

The world’s largest gathering dedicated to refugee issues, the Forum is co-hosted by UNHCR and Switzerland and convened by Colombia, France, Japan, Jordan and Uganda. It brings together Member States, civil society, financial institutions, private companies and more than 300 refugee advocates...

Global perspective Human stories A migrant from Venezuela talks to his family after crossing the Darien Gap into Central America. 7 December 2023Migrants and Refugees The International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), on Thursday, called for...

6 December 2023Human Rights Authorities in Nigeria must investigate a string of deadly airstrikes over the past six years and hold those responsible to account, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Wednesday. OHCHR issued a statement deploring the latest strike – the fourth since...

Abdullahi Mire grew up in the sprawling Dadaab refugee complex in northeastern Kenya with its population today of more than 240,000 registered refugees, mostly from Somalia. The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) coordinates operations there together with partners, relying also on the support of the...