In a joint press release, IOM and UNHCR chiefs stressed that COVID-19 underlines the urgent need for universal health coverage that includes migrants, refugees and internally displaced and stateless people.

In 2021, UNHCR will work to maintain the same levels of responsiveness, adaptability and flexibility in response to COVID-19, whilst strengthening resilience as staff and people of concern adjust to living and working with COVID-19 in the medium term. UNHCR published a supplementary appeal to respond to these needs.

A new report released by the Norwegian Refugee Council and UNHCR-led Global Protection Cluster (GPC) finds that nearly 40 million people are at heightened risk of violence, discrimination and rights abuses as COVID-19 spawns a ‘coping crisis’.

UNHCR warns that child trafficking, forced labour and forced recruitment by armed groups are increasing in Mali due to conflict, insecurity, COVID-19 and deteriorating economic conditions.

In a press release UNHCR warns that the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is driving further violence against refugee, displaced and stateless women and girls. The UNHCR-led Global Protection Cluster reported increases in gender-based violence in at least 27 countries. UNHCR is also alarmed by increased risks of child and forced marriages being resorted to as a coping strategy by displaced families buckling under socio-economic pressures.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), UNHCR has helped hundreds of refugees from the Central African Republic (CAR) to return home in recent days – the first such move since the COVID-19 pandemic forced border closures.

During the opening of a virtual session of UNHCR’s annual High Commissioner’s Dialogue on Protection challenges, UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Gillian Triggs, underlined the importance of inclusion for the protection of refugees and their hosts in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.