Like two other refugee locations in Djibouti, Holl-Holl was an old camp that was closed in the mid-2000s, as a consequence of massive repatriations to Ethiopia and to the breakaway territory of Somaliland where the security situation has relatively improved during the last decade. Over the last 6 y...

HITSATS, Ethiopia, June 13 (UNHCR) – The UN refugee agency has opened a new camp in northern Ethiopia to house the increasing number of Eritrean refugees entering the country. A total 776 Eritrean refugees have already been transferred to Hitsats Camp, which can house up to 20,000 refugees. "This...

Mogadishu, 24 May 2014 – The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Somalia (SRSG), Nicholas Kay, condemned the attack on the Federal Parliament today that resulted in fatalities and injuries. A suspected suicide car bomb exploded at the main entrance and gunshots were fired at the b...

In Ethiopia, the relocation of Somali refugees from the over-crowded transit centre in Dollo Ado town to the new camp at Hilaweyn saw its fourth day on Monday. Since the start of the operation on August 5th some 4,000 refugees have been moved. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) which...

MOGADISHU, Somalia, August 18 (UNHCR) – Kadija is in shock. Over the past two weeks, the 32-year-old Somali has lost her livelihood, fled her rural home and ended up in a dismal settlement in one of the most dangerous cities on earth. "I don't have my own house and my children can't go out and pl...

In Ethiopia, a large scale effort has meanwhile been underway to address the high mortality rates among new arrivals from Somalia. Malnutrition remains the leading cause of death but the situation is being compounded by suspected measles and other diseases. Children under the age of five, already...

NAIROBI, Kenya, August 23 (UNHCR) – The UN refugee agency has sent a team of experts in several disciplines to a remote area of eastern Ethiopia where some 18,000 Somali refugees are in urgent need of aid after fleeing their country. The UNHCR team sent to Gode includes specialists in health, nut...

Somali children are the biggest victims of the refugee crisis in the Horn of Africa, according to the latest profiling data collected by UNHCR in Ethiopia. The most recent demographic breakdown of the Somali influx into Ethiopia shows that children under the age of 18 are the largest age group amon...

Amid assessments of a somewhat improved security situation in some parts of Somalia, UNHCR is scaling up its presence in Somalia’s border regions and in Mogadishu. Yesterday, a UNHCR team undertook a mission to Liboi (Kenya) and Dobley (Lower Juba), which is the main transit point on the route to Da...

DOLLO ADO, Ethiopia, September 30 (UNHCR) – When Hassen Ibrahim arrived recently in Ethiopia, the teenager had not seen his parents for more than two years. "As the eldest son, I stayed behind to take care of my grandmother, who was too sick to travel," explained the 15-year-old, shortly after cross...