World Refugee Day 2015 – 20 June
Millions of families have fled their homes to escape war or human rights abuses. Millions of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers – who are also students, musicians, cooks, and so much more. Please get to know these remarkable individuals and introduce them to your friends.
Latvian aid worker helps refugees in Iraq
Liene Veide, a Latvian national currently working for UNHCR as a Public Information and External Relations Officer in Dohuk, Iraq, joined the United Nations in 2010.
Norway contributes with NOK 150 million to the refugee situation in Syria and the region
UNHCR thanks the Norwegian Government for their vital contribution of NOK 150 million (USD 18.3 million) to UNHCR’s Emergency and Reslience Response Operations in Syria and the region. In addition, UNHCR is grateful for the government’s pledge of NOK 40 million (USD 5.1 million) to protecting Eritrean and Syrian refugees from smuggling and trafficking across the Mediterranean.
Peteris’s dangerous journey: saving 2,000 lives in WWII
A woodpecker is working hard on one of the trees surrounding Peteris Jansons’s house on Gotland, Sweden’s largest island. Spring seems to have finally reached Scandinavia and Peteris, 92 years old and his wife Inga, 89, are preparing to celebrate their seventieth wedding anniversary in April. They met on this very island in 1943, when Peteris arrived by boat after fleeing from Latvia so as not to have to serve as a soldier in the German army, which at that time had occupied his country.
A Syrian refugee in Latvia: Bashar builds a new life in Riga
Bashar Yousef was living in Latvia as a student when the war in Syria broke out in 2011. Hearing all the news about the atrocities taking place in his home country led him to the conclusion that it was much safer to stay in Latvia.
‘Art for Social Change’: Positive experience in Latvia inspires Swede to coach young refugees in Norrköping
When Carl Biörsmark graduated from high school in the eighties in Norrköping, Sweden, he didn’t envisage that in 30 years he would become one of the first integration coaches in the country.
Child recruitment, child labour, discrimination and loneliness – the crisis of Syria’s refugee children
A UNHCR survey of Syrian refugee children in Lebanon and Jordan has found widespread psychological distress, many children living alone or separated from their parents, most receiving no education, and extensive involvement of children in illegal labour.
A million refugee children mark shameful milestone in Syria crisis
With Syria’s war well into its third year, the number of Syrian children forced to flee their homeland as refugees has now reached one million
New UNHCR report says global forced displacement at an 18-year high
A report released today by UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, says that more people are refugees or internally displaced than at any time since 1994, with the crisis in Syria having emerged as a major new factor in global displacement.
UNHCR’s Guterres: Syria refugees reach one million
Data received from UNHCR’s offices in the Syria region shows that the number of Syrians either registered as refugees or being assisted as such has now reached the one million mark.