Today's date:
News stories 2010
News stories in English published on UNHCR regional website.
News Story, 3 August 2010
Pakistan Flood Emergency:
Torrential rains and flash floods have affected around a million people in parts of southwest and northwestern Pakistan. More than one thousand people lost their lives when water inundated their homes in the past week. Though monsoon rains are nothing new for Pakistanis, it rained more than expected, washing away homes, roads and other basic infrastructure, creating the worst flood disaster in the country's history. UNHCR has launched a relief response to support the authorities to help people affected by the flood.
Nansen Refugee Award 2010:
UNHCR's annual award recognizing outstanding work on behalf of refugees goes to photojournalist Alixandra Fazzina for her powerful documenting of the lives of those displaced by conflict.
News Story, 8 July 2010
In an election year most of the focus is on domestic policies. But as in other areas, asylum and refugee policies are influenced by developments outside. With its Almedalen seminar on 5 July, UNHCR aimed to widen the perspective. There is much attention given to the EU-orchestrated harmonization. An increasingly apparent trend, however, is the political and practical cooperation among the Nordic countries.
News Story, 28 June 2010
"Where is the limit? Nordic aspects on the right to asylum" is the topic of a seminar that UNHCR arranges together with its partners at Almedalen Week 2010. The highly relevant discussion will provide new views on how decisions on refugee policies are made in the Nordic countries. The participants discuss whether it is politics, law or even the media that set the agenda for policy-making.
News Story, 15 June 2010
The theme for World Refugee Day 2010 is "Home", in recognition of the situation of more than 43 million uprooted people around the world. Around 10 million of them are refugees of concern to UNHCR.
News Story, 10 June, 2010
UNHCR, Lithuanian Red Cross and the State Border Guard Service in Lithuania have taken an important step towards ensuring protection-sensitive border monitoring in Lithuania. The three parties reached an agreement in early June 2010. The Memorandum of Understanding was signed in Vilnius, Lithuania, by representatives of all parties.
News story, 27 May 2010
Bjorn Heidenstrom has almost reached the end of a marathon journey that has seen him bike through Europe and Africa over the past year to raise awareness about refugees among football players and supporters.
News Story, 26 May 2010
This comment was made by a pupil at the Johan-Olov school in Avesta, Sweden, after taking part in the role play "Flykten", "Passages". The role play simulates a situation where several families have to flee from a violent home country, and gives a sense of what reality could look like for a refugee. The idea is that the participants can gain a deeper understanding for a situation that is very far from their daily life. The game goes through all the phases of leaving one’s home, accessing a UNHCR-run refugee camp and eventually reaching a new country and applying for asylum.
News Story, 12 May 2010
The situation in Somalia is deteriorating rapidly. Last year more than 120,000 Somalis fled from fighting and violence to seek refuge in neighboring countries, mainly Kenya. UNHCR and its partners are struggling to respond to the protection and assistance needs of more than half a million Somali refugees in the region. There are also 1.4 million internally displaced in Somalia. Due to security risks it is very difficult to reach some of them and provide the assistance that is sorely needed.
News Story, 6 May 2010
A moot court competition in Refugee Law, the first ever in Lithuania, was organized at Mykolas Riomeris University in cooperation with UNHCR at the end of March. The case concerned a Rwandese whose application for asylum had been denied. The task of the participating teams was to argue both sides of the case to a judicial panel and the team presenting the best arguments would win. Three teams of law students from the biggest universities in the country participated
News Story, 4 May 2010
Thousands celebrated the winners of the Swedish Postcode Lottery’s (PostkodLotteriet) GrannYran in Karlskrona on 18 April 2010. As a beneficiary of the Swedish Postcode Lottery, UNHCR Stockholm attended the event where a SEK 75 million lottery pot was distributed among the winners.
News Story, Thursday 22 April, 2010
The UN General Assembly voted on Thursday to renew the mandate of High Commissioner António Guterres, extending his term by a further five years.
News Story, Wednesday 14 April, 2010
A UNHCR photo exhibition, "Invisible in the City: the lives of urban refugees", opened in Södertälje town hall this week. The exhibition illustrates the resilience of refugees, their hopes and dreams as they struggle to simply survive, make a living and care for their families. Featuring 42 images of refugees living in urban settings in Colombia, Malaysia and South Africa taken by UNHCR photographer Zalmaï, the exhibition will be on show until the end of April.
News Story, 6 April 2010
Sarajevo - UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie, travelling with her partner Brad Pitt, on Monday visited internally displaced people and returnees in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Jolie’s trip came over fourteen years after the end of the war that ravaged this Balkan country. She took a break from working on her latest movie to highlight the plight of 113,000 Bosnians displaced from their homes and 7,000 refugees from Croatia, many of whom are living in collective centres, often in appalling conditions.
News Story, 25 March 2010
A report by the UN refugee agency highlights numerous differences in the way 12 EU member states assess asylum applications.
News Story, 16 March 2010
STOCKHOLM, (UNHCR) -- When Mubara Abdulhassan fled from Darfur in 2004, he could not imagine that the journey would eventually take him to the northern parts of Sweden. The dangerous route to Europe led him to Istanbul, where he met his destiny in several ways: he came into contact with UNHCR and was resettled to Sweden, he met the future mother of his children, and he met Necati Sonmez, adocumentary filmmaker. Now the story about Mubara is being filmed in the form of a docudrama with the working title “Somewhere in Africa”. UNHCR Stockholm met Mubara Abdulhassan and Necati Sonmez on a snowy day in early 2010.
News story, 10.03.2010
REVINGE, 8 March (UNHCR) -- Operating from a sprawling base camp atop a frozen hilltop on the outskirts of Revinge, 24 long-time aid workers have arrived from various locations across the globe to address humanitarian needs facing the host community and the uprooted civilians.
Participants in the emergency training course are enthusiastic, despite the sub zero degree nights living in tents and the tense days facing experienced actors playing angry officials and traumatised displaced persons.
News story, 08.02.2010
The Baltic and Nordic countries received more than 50,000 applications
for asylum in 2009. Almost half of these were lodged in Sweden,
where applications remained on par with the previous year.
19.01.2010
As a quick response to the massive and urgent needs in Haiti, the Swedish PostcodeLottery (SPL) is contributing with a most welcome donation of 3 million SEK to UNHCR's emergency operations in the region.
13.01.2010
GENEVA, (UNHCR) – UN High Commissioner for Refugees António
Guterres said on Wednesday his agency is ready to assist in the international
response to this week's devastating earthquake in Haiti.
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