The UN migration agency (IOM) has said Libya's coast guard over the weekend returned 83 Europe-bound migrants to Libya and brought them to detention centers. Around 6,000 migrants have reportedly been intercepted and brought back to Libya this year.
Germany pledged €1.58 billion ($1.78 billion) for Syria at a conference hosted by the EU and the UN. While the event raised a total of $7.7 billion, charity association Oxfam said the sum was "simply not enough."
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday warned once again of the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on migrants and refugees, stressing that millions find themselves facing healthcare, economic and protection crises at the same time.
In a joint statement, seven UN agencies on Wednesday launched an appeal to support the population in Libya, where the conflict and COVID-19 are a threat and the situation for migrants and refugees is especially alarming.
Libya has illegally expelled at least 1,400 migrants and refugees this year, the UN human rights office says. The forced returns during the COVID-19 pandemic put migrants at risk of human rights violations and should be stopped, it says.
Stay at home orders to contain the spread of COVID-19 have exposed women and girls to a much greater risk of domestic violence. There is growing evidence that abuse is thriving in the conditions created by the pandemic.
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.
The United Nations has reported that the number of Syrian civilians forced to flee violence in the northwest has risen to nearly one million since December 2019. The majority of them are women and children.
The United Nations denounced that tens of thousands of desperate people in northwest Syria, where there are currently about four million people, are at risk for famine as they flee due to the conflict between the Syrian government and pro-Turkish fighters.
A report issued by the UN on Monday states that an estimated 355,000 internally displaced children were not attending school in Iraq at the end of 2019. The UN is calling on the Iraqi government to revise regulations and practices concerning education for children who were prevented from going to school during the years their areas were under Islamic State (ISIS) control.
The situation is growing worse in Syria's northwestern opposition-held province of Idlib, where clashes have taken place between Turkish forces and the regime under Bashar al-Assad.