The UN Refugee Agency is appealing for support to refugees in Egypt. It said an increase in arrivals and a lack of resources have put the country's refugee aid system at risk and that support was critical.
Western countries took in less than five percent of refugees needing to be resettled from poorer regions last year, despite record numbers of displaced people around the world. Fewer than 56,000 refugees were given new homes in 2018 under the UN’s resettlement program, a decline from previous years.
The UN Refugee Agency says there has been an increase in the number of people fleeing South Sudan to the Democratic Republic of Congo in recent days, due to violence against civilians.
Canada has announced it will take in 750 vulnerable refugees who were kept under slave-like conditions in Libya. 150 persons have been resettled so far, another 600 will follow over the next two years. Canada is also looking to accept refugees from Niger.
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the University of Bologna have signed a memorandum of understanding to create "university corridors" between Ethiopia and Italy to give refugee students the chance to continue their studies in Italy.
More than 16,000 migrants were returned home from Libya in 2018 under a voluntary return program run by the UN's migration agency, the IOM. Many of them had tried - and failed - to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.
Despite fewer migrants and refugees entering Europe, anti-migrant rhetoric is on the rise, the UNHCR warns. Commissioner Filippo Grandi warns of an exacerbation of that rhetoric ahead of the European Parliament elections in May.
A total of four million refugee children around the world go without schooling, with numbers rising, according to a report by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). It said girls are the most discriminated against.
The migrant death toll in the Mediterranean on the Libya-Europe route rose sharply in 2018, from one death per 38 arrivals in 2017 to one death per 14 arrivals last year, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in its report titled "Desperate Journeys."
The UN migration agency says that over 55,000 people have been displaced in around two months in the Nigerian state of Borno due to ongoing violence. Refugee camps in the area have become congested, and the IOM says it doesn't have the resources to meet the needs of those who have been displaced.
Migrants and refugees on the Greek island of Chios are living in dire conditions. Even though the refugee camp is not as overcrowded as the Moria camp on Lesbos, migrants are also sleeping in tents because all containers in the camp are full. Given the freezing winter temperatures and long waiting times for asylum interviews, they are facing a long and harsh winter.
Refugees travel 2 billion kilometers each year to escape war and persecution. The UN Refugee Agency now wants people to walk, run or bike that distance to demonstrate their solidarity.