The impact the coronavirus disease is having on migrants is of “huge concern”, according to a spokesperson from the UN migration agency, IOM. He also warned that border closures could lead to increased health risks.
Mass returns of Afghan migrants from Iran have led to concerns about increased transmission rates of the coronavirus disease in Afghanistan. On Wednesday, Iran reported 17,361 confirmed cases of the virus. At the same time, Afghans have continued to flee back to their home country in record numbers.
Fears about coronavirus are now also beginning to affect migrants and refugees: the German interior ministry is taking measures to contain the virus — including a suspension of all returns to and from Italy under the Dublin regulation.
The number of migrant and refugee arrivals in European states has gone down considerably since 2015. This however does not mean that migration attempts to Europe have gone down at the same time. A Pakistani migrant’s account of his journey sheds light on how irregular migration routes and people smuggling are still very much alive in 2020.
The chief of the United Nations has urged the world to "step up" and match Pakistan‘s compassion for Afghan refugees. Pakistan has hosted Afghan refugees for 40 years and is the world‘s second-largest refugee-hosting country.
A group of men from Pakistan has narrowly escaped freezing to death on the border between Iran and Turkey. The men claimed that they were rescued by a local taxi driver after being robbed and pushed back to Iran by the Turkish authorities.
Olympian Taekwondo athlete Kimia Alizadeh defected from her home country because of its treatment of women. With her visa renewed, she is hoping to go to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics under the German flag.
A number painted on a plain cement gravestone is all that marks the resting place of hundreds of Afghans in a city in Turkey’s east. The unnamed migrants buried here lost their lives trying to cross the treacherous border from Iran.
Selma and her husband fled Iran with their two children more than a year ago. After becoming separated at the Greek border, they finally ended up in Germany -- but in two different cities. Now they are desperate to be reunited. This is Selma's story.
Maryam Zaree, daughter of Iranian parents, is a successful actress and director based in Berlin. As a teenager, she found out a well-kept secret: that she was born inside Iran's infamous Evin prison. Now Zaree produced a documentary to come to terms with her parents' silence and to shed light on her own migration history.
Arash Hampay, an Iranian asylum-seeker, was called a "monkey" by a Greek politician for challenging far-right groups that oppose his voluntary work for other migrants. Although the politician has been expelled by his party, Hampay faces continuous threats.
A new law gives Iranian mothers who are married to foreign citizens the right to pass their citizenship to their children. 800,000 children of Iranian women and Afghan men can now become citizens. One of them -- 27-year-old Soheila -- told us her story.