Somalia is at the heart of one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world today. Twenty years of conflict and waves of drought have uprooted a quarter of the country’s 7.5 million people. As the region faces its most severe drought in 60 years, the Somali exodus is growing fast. The refugees urgently need medical aid and high-protein, high-energy food. They also need clean water, shelter and basic services in the camps.
Over 5.3 million refugees have fled Syria since 2011, seeking safety in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and beyond. After almost six years of war in Syria, refugee vulnerabilities and poverty are on the rise, the impact on host communities continues to grow, and funding for the humanitarian response is not keeping up with the needs
Persecution, conflict and poverty forced over 1 million people to flee to Europe in 2015. Many came seeking safety for themselves and their families, risking their lives and facing a treacherous journey
Following violence, hostilities, human rights violations and a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation in the northern part of Mali since January 2012, large numbers of Malians have been seeking refuge in Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Niger or displaced internally.
Northern Nigeria’s conflict with Boko Haram spilled over to the Lake Chad Basin region, where Nigerian refugees are hosted since 2014, causing large scale forced displacement and an unprecedented humanitarian emergency in Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
Today, there are 25,000 Ivorian refugees hosted in Ghana, Guinea, Liberia and Togo. Since 2011, UNHCR has facilitated the voluntary return in safety and dignity of over 65,000 Ivorian refugees and and continues to do so.
Humanitarian actors involved in the response to the outflow of civilians from Yemen due to the current conflict are committed to providing life-saving assistance and protection to those fleeing Yemen, pending durable solutions.
The civil unrest in Burundi has led to an outflow of over 210,000 refugees (as of 31 October 2015) to neighbouring countries of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Rwanda, Tanzania, and as far away as Uganda and Zambia. It started in Bujumbura in April 2015, with a peak in June, ahead of the contested Presidential election that took place on 21 July 2015. Since then, a tense political crisis and a climate of fear and intimidation have spread throughout the country.
The DRC hosts more than 400,000 refugees (UNHCR/DRC, August 2016), who are mainly from the Central Africa Republic (CAR), Burundi and Rwanda, as well as former Angolan refugees
The Information Management Common Service Portal is open to all humanitarian organizations as a way to help disseminate information that will assist refugees - in the nine Temporary Shelters located along Thailand’s border with Myanmar - in reaching freely informed decisions concerning their future lives, including the possibility of a voluntary return home
The ongoing armed conflict in Iraq has resulted in more than 3 million people fleeing from their homes and seeking alternate protection in Iraq. Internally displaced persons (IDPs) are currently living in more than 2,000 temporary settlements, as well as other non-camp accommodation (e.g. host families, rented) throughout Iraq.
Following the 2015 election dispute in Mozambique, new influx of asylum seekers and Zimbabwean nationals flee Mozambique to neighbouring countries to seek protection
According to UNHCR estimates, statelessness affects up to 10 million people worldwide, over 1 million of which are in West Africa. There are many factors contributing to the risk of statelessness in the region, which suggest that the population at risk is very large.
