The UN migration agency, IOM, says that more than two-thirds of West African migrants returning to their home countries are in financial debt. Many also feel that shame prevents them from reintegrating in their communites, an IOM study has found.
The UNHCR has helped 3,000 Malian refugees move back into Burkina Faso's Goudoubo refugee camp. The same refugees had been forced to abandon the site nine months earlier following a series of violent attacks.
The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) denounced in a statement that COVID-19 and conflicts in the Central Sahel region of Africa have forced over 12 million children there to leave school.
COVID-19 presents a serious risk to refugee education worldwide, according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR. It warns that the virus threatens to cause a ‘pandemic of poverty’, which could reverse hard-won progress made in refugee school enrolment.
The UN migration agency is calling on the international community to provide funds for aid in Central Sahel. Over a million people have been displaced and over three million are struggling with food insecurity in the region, IOM says.
In recent weeks, violence worsened in the Sahel region of Africa, causing hundreds of people to flee and putting greater pressure on host communities. UNHCR has issued a warning about the humanitarian situation in the area.
In 2019, the online information site "Black Post" was set up in Italy. Staffed by immigrants, its aim is to tackle the subject of migration in a clear and humanizing fashion. The site focuses on bringing migrants' personal stories to their audience.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has set up call centers along popular migrant routes in West Africa, allowing migrants to phone home to their families for free. The two-minute calls help the migrants keep in touch with family members who can often go months on end without any news from their loved ones.
Theater has become a tool to raise awareness on the dangers of irregular migration in Burkina Faso thanks to a campaign launched by UN agency IOM.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is supporting the establishment of livestock farmer groups in Burkina Faso, in collaboration with the local government and with funding from the European Union. The goal: To help returning migrants rebuild their lives back home.
Some migrants claim that they were abused by Algerian officials before and during their deportations. Algeria is one of several North African countries that have not signed an African Union protocol on the free circulation of people.