DONARE FAQs presents a selection of frequently asked questions about humanitarian crises, introducing the basic features and contexts of humanitarian emergencies.
The number of forcibly displaced people continues to rise. As of December 2024, over 123 million people worldwide had been forcibly displaced due to persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations, and events that had seriously disrupted public order. By the end of last year, a record 73.5 million people had been uprooted from their homes by conflict and violence and remained displaced within their own countries as internally displaced persons (IDPs).
Many of the hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants from sub-Saharan Africa who seek protection, asylum or work in Europe each year are "at great risk of harm and death" because few protection services are available to help them on their perilous journeys, according to a report released this week by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) says a funding shortfall has forced it to cut by one-half food rations for more than 50,000 people in Malawi at the country's only refugee camp. The food cuts come at a time when refugees at the Dzaleka camp, who are mainly from the Great Lakes region, are already facing deteriorating food security.
The World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) have warned in a joined statement Friday that WFP will be forced to make additional cuts to already reduced food assistance to refugees in Chad in April and may have to completely suspend assistance by May without immediate and sustained funding. WFP is appealing for $142.7 million over the next six months to maintain its refugee support program.
A large mob of young people, including students, attacked a convention center housing hundreds of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar in the Indonesian city of Banda Aceh on Wednesday, demanding their deportation. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said in a statement today it remains deeply worried about the safety of refugees and calls on local law enforcement authorities for urgent action to ensure protection of all desperate individuals and humanitarian staff.
The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and its humanitarian partners are urgently preparing to assist up to 150,000 Rohingya refugees who have arrived in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, over the past 18 months. Targeted violence and persecution in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, as well as the ongoing war in the neighboring country, have forced thousands of Rohingya to seek protection in Bangladesh.
The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), together with the Government of Bangladesh, on Monday launched their Joint Response Plan (JRP) for one million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. The plan calls for US$934.5 million from the international community to fund protection, shelter, and basic needs for refugees in camps, and to support opportunities for self-reliance.
Thousands of refugees and migrants risking their lives on dangerous land routes across the African continent face extreme forms of violence, human rights abuses and exploitation, according to a report released Friday by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Mixed Migration Centre (MMC). The organizations say the deaths of refugees and migrants in the Sahara Desert are believed to be twice as high as those at sea.
The United States Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) expressed serious concerns regarding the devastating cuts to food rations affecting over 700,000 refugees in Kenya's largest refugee camps on Wednesday. The cuts are a direct consequence of the withdrawal of essential humanitarian aid by the US and other donor governments, resulting in severe funding shortages that threaten the operations of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and its partner aid agencies.
More than 56,000 Congolese refugees are receiving only half the food rations they need, due to a dwindling of funding for food needs in five camps in Burundi, according the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). The refugees, most of them fleeing conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), require food assistance to nourish their families.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, has condemned the widespread human rights violations and abuses committed on a massive scale and with impunity against migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers in Libya. Speaking at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday, Türk also accused Libya's leaders of crushing political dissent in order to cling to power, leaving the country divided, and its people mired in crisis, poverty and misery.
Members of Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya community living as refugees in Bangladesh are again voicing opposition to efforts to repatriate many of them. They say that the Myanmar government has not met their demands over citizenship rights and that it is not safe for them to go back to Myanmar’s Rakhine state. Those concerns come amid a plan for their repatriation to Myanmar in the coming weeks.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has begun rolling out food distributions to nearly 900,000 refugees in Ethiopia, following a full revamp of the safeguards and controls in its refugee operations. WFP said Monday that families living in refugee camps across five regions are receiving food parcels for the first time since the UN agency paused food distributions in June 2023, following reports of large-scale diversions.
The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has recorded an alarming rise in the death toll of Rohingya refugees while attempting dangerous sea journeys in the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal in 2022. UNHCR said Tuesday at least 348 people died or disappeared while fleeing Myanmar or Bangladesh by sea last year, making it one of the deadliest years since 2014.
Diplomats for Afghanistan's ruling Taliban said Wednesday that neighboring Pakistan is implementing a plan for the "imminent" and rapid mass deportation of nearly three million Afghan refugees from its territory. More than 825,000 undocumented Afghans have already been forcibly repatriated from Pakistan since September 2023, as a result of a government crackdown on foreigners living in the country without legal permission or whose visas have expired.
A refugee is a person that is compelled to leave his place of habitual residence in order to seek refuge outside his country of origin or nationality due to persecution, war, conflict, violence, severe human rights violations, events seriously disturbing public order, or other reasons that have made it impossible or dangerous for him or her to remain.
The United States has committed to providing an additional US$116 million in aid to people impacted by humanitarian crises in Myanmar, Bangladesh and the surrounding region, including more than US$74 million to support Rohingya refugees and their host communities. The pledge comes at a time when a steep decline in funds has forced humanitarian agencies to focus on the most critical and life-saving needs. This funding crush has led to worsening humanitarian conditions in the world’s largest refugee settlement.
The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) is seeking $1.4 billion to meet the needs of 2.3 million South Sudanese refugees living in five neighboring countries - Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) - through 2024. A similar number of people living in local communities in the countries of asylum will benefit from services and support, according to the Regional Refugee Response Plan (RRP) released on Thursday.
The number of Rohingya taking risky boat trips across the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea to flee mounting hunger and hopelessness in the refugee camps of Bangladesh this year has topped last year’s numbers and could keep rising, rights groups and aid agencies say. A growing number of desperate Rohingya refugees continues to arrive in Indonesia in overcrowded vessels, as conditions in refugee camps in Bangladesh continue to worsen, where food rations have been significantly cut.
