News Headlines | UNHCR Emergency Response

UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie meets Haitian quake survivors

UNHCR News Stories, 10 Feb 2010

"It will take years to rebuild Haiti," Jolie said, after seeing the devastation from the January 12 earthquake. "Every day, the UN, governments, NGOs and local organizations are providing more people with protection, food, water, shelter and health care, yet the needs are still enormous and the displacement could last a decade. Providing adequate shelter to the displaced is of paramount importance, especially as the upcoming rainy season threatens to add to the devastation. Everyone is bracing themselves for a second wave of tragedy."

Violence displaces 15,000 Congolese civilians over past two months

UNHCR News Stories, 26 Jan 2010

"Military operations and banditry have forced more than 15,000 people to flee their homes over the past two months in Democratic Republic of the Congo's troubled North Kivu province. There are an estimated 2.1 million internally displaced people in total in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where harassment, human rights abuses, rape and intimidation of civilians is regularly reported by the local population"

Conflict displaces 63,000 civilians in southern Somalia so far this year

UNHCR News Stories, 19 Jan 2010

"The suffering in Somalia is one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, with some 1.5 million people internally displaced and more than 560,000 people living as refugees in neighbouring countries. Fresh fighting between the government-aligned Alu Sunna Wal Jamma militia and Hisb-ul-Islam erupted in the central Somalia town of Belet Weyne on January 9, reportedly killing at least 30 civilians and injuring another 50. "

Some 74,000 Africans cross Gulf of Aden to Yemen in record-breaking year

UNHCR News Stories, 18 Dec 2009

"More than 74,000 people, fleeing civil war, political instability, poverty, famine and drought in the Horn of Africa, crossed the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea on smugglers' boats and reached the shores of Yemen this year. This figure represents a staggering 50 per cent increase over last year's 50,000 arrivals, itself a record. Refugees and migrants make the risky journey under harrowing conditions. In some cases they are beaten, raped, killed or just thrown overboard into the shark-infested waters. "

UNHCR launches programme to help 200,000 vulnerable Afghans survive the winter

UNHCR News Stories, 1 Dec 2009

"The UN refugee agency on Tuesday began distributing blankets, sweaters, jerry cans and bags of charcoal to 1,500 of the neediest people in Kabul as part of a countrywide initiative to help some 200,000 vulnerable Afghans cope with the winter. Agha Mohammad, who returned home from exile in Pakistan in 2002, was among those receiving aid in the Afghan capital. The 60-year-old said he was happy to get the assistance, "particularly these shoes, socks, sweater and blankets, as our children really need these items in this cold weather."

UNHCR chief urges the world not to forget the displaced in eastern Congo

UNHCR News, 16 Oct 2009

"If you look at the humanitarian situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, all the victims – victims of conflict, victims of illness, health problems, of extreme poverty – the number of people that die, mostly needlessly, every six months is equivalent to the [number of] victims of the Asian tsunami," UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said.

Eastern Chad: Sudanese refugee camp in Oure Cassoni to be relocated

UNHCR News, 22 Sept 2009. By UNHCR spokesperson Andrej Mahecic

UNHCR welcomes the decision by the government of Chad to relocate the Oure Cassoni refugee camp away from the volatile border area with Sudan. The camp currently accommodates some 28,000 refugees from Darfur.

We have been advocating for several year with Chadian authorities for the camp, which is located just seven kilometres from the Sudanese border, to be moved to a more accessible area.

LRA terrorises DRC after Uganda crackdown

Mail & Guardian, 16 Sept 2009

In Congo alone, the LRA has killed more than 1 200 civilians over the last year, according to the UN. A further 2 082 Congolese, about a third of them children, have been kidnapped or reported missing. In an area of the country previously untouched by conflict, 360 000 people have fled their homes. Most have yet to receive outside help.

Conflict and drought force more Somalis to flee to Kenya

UNHCR Briefing Notes, 25 Sept 2009

UNHCR spokesperson Andrej Mahecic: In mid-August, we embarked on a programme aimed at decongesting Dadaab and started the relocation of some 12,900 refugees to Kakuma camp in north-west Kenya. Despite the fact that we have already moved 9,570 refugees, the camp population in Dadaab remains virtually unchanged. There are now 281,600 Somali refugees there.

Thousands Flee From LRA Attacks In DRC

Voice of America, 22 Aug 2009. By Lisa Schlein

The UN refugee agency says thousands of civilians have fled from fresh attacks by the Ugandan rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army, in Sudan's remote Western Equatoria region, which borders the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic. The UNHCR says two people were killed, three injured and 10 girls abducted from a local church

Homesick but reluctant to go back

UNHCR News, 20 Aug 2009

He misses his beautiful Swat valley, but 56-year-old Anwar* won't move back yet because he doesn't want to risk the safety of this family.

"I don't know what is going on in my area, which was once famous for hospitality and peace," Anwar sighs.

Originally from Charbagh, Anwar and his wife, two daughters and eight of his nine sons are living with his sister and elderly brother-in-law near Katlang, a small town in the Mardan district.

UNHCR pays tribute to fallen colleagues

UNHCR News, 19 Aug 2009

Hours after a bomb killed another two UN employees in Afghanistan, UNHCR staff on Wednesday marked the first World Humanitarian Day by honouring their hundreds of colleagues in humanitarian organizations around the globe who have been killed while carrying out their duties.

"This has been a particularly painful year for UNHCR, with the loss of three colleagues in the same operation," Guy Avognon, the chairman of the Staff Council, said at a ceremony in Geneva. The three members of UNHCR staff killed in attacks this year in Pakistan are among 30 who have been lost in operations since 1987.

Life, death and the Taliban: Blowback

Reuters, C.M. Sennott, 10 Aug 2009

By C.M. Sennott

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (GlobalPost) -- On a dusty plain not far from the border with Afghanistan, mud-brick walls weathered by rain and time still mark the boundaries of what were once sprawling Afghan refugee camps.

The walls are a crumbling memory of the first time I came to this frontier town in 1995 to report on what was then a new force in the region, the Taliban.

And now, 14 years later, on this same patch of earth, the Jelozai Camp is filling up once again. Beyond the remnants of the old walls are new rows of white, UNHCR tents sprouting and filling up with hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people.

Chad: first group of refugees depart for resettlement in the USA

UNHCR News, 23 June 2009. By UNHCR spokesperson William Spindler

A first group of 11 refugees left the Chadian capital N'Djamena by air on Sunday (21 June), to be resettled in the United States. The group comprised seven urban refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), three urban Sudanese refugees and one person from the Central African Republic (CAR) who had been living in Dosseye refugee camp in southern Chad. They will be resettled in Kentucky (Lexington), Texas (San Antonio), Iowa (Des Moines) and Utah (Salt Lake City).

Blind Somali refugee treks 90 km to safety

Reuters, 6 Jun 2009

After her 90 km (55 mile) trek over dusty scrubland from Somalia to Kenya, Habiba Ali is still exhausted, sickly and trembling with emotion.

Days before, the blind, 53-year-old mother had set off from Kismayu in Somalia, for the first time in her life, to be reunited with her sole surviving son in Dadaab, the world's biggest refugee settlement.

"We used to be a big, happy family, but look where life has brought us now," she said.

Somali refugees pour into Kenya by the thousands

Reuters, Frank Nyakairu, 4 Jun 2009

Somalis fleeing war and hunger at home are pouring into neighbouring Kenya at an average rate of 7,000 per month, swelling what is already the world's largest refugee settlement, U.N. staff said on Thursday.

UNHCR distributes first identity cards to Sudanese refugees in Chad

UNHCR News, 2 June 2009

UNHCR has begun a programme to distribute identity cards to some 110,000 Sudanese refugees over the age of 18 living in camps in eastern Chad. The ID cards are the equivalent of a refugee passport, allowing free movement within the host country and providing access to some basic rights in line with the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention.