On the occasion of World Mental Health Day on 10 October, UNHCR has appealed to the international community to promote quality mental health support for refugees, internally displaced and stateless people. It said a growing number of people are asking for help with anxiety and depression.
The Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights has called on Poland to protect the human rights of Afghan migrants stuck at its border with Belarus. The migrants have been camped out in the open for the past two weeks.
Lured to Belarus with promises of easy EU immigration, Iraqis, Syrians and Afghans are now trapped in Lithuania. Abbas al-Khashali and Hamza al-Shawabkeh met them there.
In Lithuania, some migrants have been detained for more than a month in camps hastily established by local authorities. They are exposed to harsh conditions and are isolated without access to information. The Lithuanian authorities say they don’t have the capacity to examine each individual claim for protection.
Around 800 migrants are stuck at the Rudninkai camp in Lithuania after crossing the border from Belarus. They say the situation is very bad and complain about lack of medical care and inedible food.
Latvia has become the latest Baltic state to start pushing back migrants hoping to cross its border from Belarus. Dozens were turned back on Tuesday night under a new state of emergency declared by the government in Riga.
Iraq has begun to fly back some of its citizens who had flown in to Belarus on tourist visas, in the hope of making it over the border to Lithuania and the EU. Eighty reportedly returned to Baghdad on Monday, and 200 are expected to make the journey on Tuesday.
Migration paths to Europe can take many shapes and are always full of risk and danger. But for stateless people, migration entails countless added layers of difficulty.
An Iraqi man has reportedly died near the border of Belarus with Lithuania, as tensions between the two countries are running high. An inquiry into the death has been launched.
As Lithuania struggles to stem the flow of migrants trying to enter the country from neighboring Belarus, border guards have said that they have begun to push back migrants trying to enter the country using irregular methods of crossing.
At least 171 people have been detained while trying to cross from Belarus into Lithuania on Tuesday night. This is the largest number or irregular crossings intercepted on that border in a single day in 2021. The government believes that Belarusian authorities are colluding with people smugglers.
Iraq's displaced population is returning to their destroyed homes. For some Yazidi women, living in camps has been a chance to empowerment.