As many European countries continue to struggle with the unprecedent COVID-19 crisis, the Council of Europe and UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, today encourage States to benefit from the support refugee health professionals can provide to national health systems at this critical juncture. “In recent ...

A new storybook that aims to help children understand and come to terms with COVID-19 has been produced by a collaboration of more than 50 organizations working in the humanitarian sector, including the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the United Nations High Commission...

In the face of the COVID-19 crisis, we are all vulnerable. The virus has shown that it does not discriminate – but many refugees, those forcibly displaced, the stateless and migrants are at heightened risk. Three-quarters of the world’s refugees and many migrants are hosted in developing regions ...

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is appealing for calm and an easing of tensions on Turkey’s borders with the European Union in light of the present increased movements of people there – including refugees and asylum-seekers. UNHCR is monitoring developments in Turkey and in Greece and is offering ...

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi today called for urgent action to address the increasingly desperate situation of refugees and migrants in reception centres in the Aegean islands. Conditions in facilities on Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Kos and Leros are woefully inadequate, and have co...

IOM, the International Organization for Migration, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and UNICEF, the UN Children’s Fund, today welcomed the relocation of 12 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children from Greece to Luxembourg. The children, who had been living in overcrowded reception and identification cent...

Around the world COVID-19 is taking lives and changing communities but the virus is also inducing massive protection risks for women and girls forced to flee their homes, the Assistant High Commissioner for Protection at UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, Gillian Triggs, warned today. “We need to pay ur...

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is calling for greater coordination, solidarity and responsibility-sharing, in view of the increased movements of refugees and migrants in the Mediterranean Sea. Despite the extremely difficult circumstances faced by many countries at present due to COVID-19, the prote...

With the world mobilizing to combat the spread of COVID-19, many countries in Europe and beyond have adopted exceptional measures to manage their borders, limiting air travel and cross-border mobility. UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, has called today on European countries to safeguard the many good pr...

The coronavirus pandemic has deepened the plight of people fleeing war, conflict and persecution. As countries battle to protect their populations and economies, fundamental norms of refugee and human rights law are at risk. “The core principles of refugee protection are being put to test – but peo...