Aid organization Oxfam has highlighted in a new report a dramatic increase in famine in areas severely affected by climate change. Global warming is bringing more extreme weather events such as droughts, hurricanes and floods to some of the poorest parts of the planet, which could fuel new migration patterns.
Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso have already faced years of unrest and climate distress. But growing food insecurity and conflict have compounded pressures, raising concerns in Brussels and Geneva about an increase in attempts to reach Europe.
The African Center for Strategic Studies reports that conflicts continue to drive record levels of population displacement in Africa. The continent's 36 million forcibly displaced persons represent 44% of the global total.
As the UN document turns 70 years old, experts say there is a lack of political will to implement the rights of refugees under the agreement. Countries in Africa are already moving beyond it.
Malaria remained the leading cause of disease among refugees in 2020, despite the coronavirus pandemic. Young children in sub-Saharan Africa are especially vulnerable to the mosquito-borne disease.
After fleeing political violence in Burkina Faso almost 20 years ago, Hamado Dipama ended up in Germany entirely by chance. Now that he has made Munich his home, he remains politically active and dedicated to social justice.
Increasing numbers of Nigerian women are being trafficked into prostitution in Burkina Faso’s gold mining camps, an investigation has revealed. Lured by traffickers who promise them jobs, they end up with huge debts and no way out.
The UN refugee agency UNHCR has launched a new data visualization showing how climate change is contributing to drive new displacement and increase the vulnerability of those already forced to flee.
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.