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...

In Kenya, UNHCR began populating yesterday (Thursday, 18 August) a new part of the Dadaab refugee complex to provide shelter for tens of thousands of new Somali refugees and to ease the chronic overcrowding of the existing camps - namely Dagahaley, Ifo and Hagadera. The first group to occupy ten...

NAIROBI, Kenya, August 19 (UNHCR) – The UN refugee agency said Friday it is continuing to distribute emergency aid to displaced people in southern and central Somalia, reaching some 30,000 of them this week alone. Since early July, UNHCR teams have assisted some 180,000 people displaced by drough...

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...

UNHCR is becoming extremely concerned about the increasingly poor health state of recent Somali arrivals in Ethiopia. At the Kobe camp, in the Dollo Ado area, medical screening of new arrivals is recording severe acute malnutrition among 19 percent of children. At nearby Hilaweyn, the rate is 16 pe...

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...

UNHCR is very concerned by the latest escalation of violence in southern Somalia. The renewed clashes are between opposing armed groups and are further exacerbating the already severe humanitarian situation. We urge all armed groups and forces in Somalia to avoid targeting civilian areas and to ensu...

Houthi fighters have said in a statement that they would deal "positively" with any efforts to lift the suffering of the Yemeni people, a sign that they could accept a five-day humanitarian ceasefire proposed by Saudi Arabia. The Houthis political council said on Sunday that they would like to se...

A boat carrying at least 10 foreign nationals has washed ashore in central Somalia in a region controlled by the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab group, witness tell Al Jazeera. All on board the stricken boat - which came ashore near the town of El Dheer in Galgaduud region - were led away by masked fig...