Latest Political refugees News
While Syrian refugees don't want to return, officials in Lebanon and Syria see exodus as opportunity
BEIRUT (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees have returned to their country since Israel launched a massive aerial bombardment on wide swathes of Lebanon in September. Many who fled to Lebanon after the war in Syria started in 2011 did not want to go back. But for...
Haitian activists demand halt to deportations as gang violence and poverty soar
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haitian activists on Thursday demanded that other countries temporarily stop deportations to their country due to a surge in gang violence and deepening poverty. Tens of thousands of people have been deported to Haiti in the past month, mostly from the...
Banning UNRWA will lead to a vacuum and more suffering for Palestinians, the agency's chief says
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — The head of the U.N. agency caring for Palestinian refugees said Wednesday that newly passed Israeli laws effectively banning its activities in Israel will leave a vacuum that will cost more lives and create further instability in Gaza and the West Bank. ...
The death toll in Lebanon crosses 3,000 in the 13-month Israel-Hezbollah war, Health Ministry says
BEIRUT (AP) — The 13-month war between Israel and Hezbollah has killed more than 3,000 people in Lebanon, the country’s Health Ministry said on Monday, more than double the number of people killed since their last major war two decades ago. The war shows no signs of ending, and...
Singapore's affluent veneer hides repression and corruption, says son of its modern-day founder
LONDON (AP) — Singapore has become much more repressive, and corruption in the Asian financial hub has worsened in the decade since the death of former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, according to his youngest son who fled to Britain to seek asylum from what he described as a campaign of persecution...
Uganda struggles to feed more than 1.7 million refugees as international support dwindles
RWAMWANJA, Uganda (AP) — For months, Agnes Bulaba, a Congolese refugee in Uganda, has had to get by without the food rations she once depended on. Her children scavenge among local communities for whatever they can find to eat. “As a woman who’s not married, life is hard,”...
Europe's human rights watchdog urges Cyprus to let migrants stuck in UN buffer zone seek asylum
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — A senior official with Europe’s top human rights watchdog has urged the government of ethnically divided Cyprus to allow passage to nearly three dozen asylum seekers out of a U.N.-controlled buffer zone where they have been stranded in tents for months. ...
Dutch asylum agency is fined 50,000 euros daily for an overcrowded center
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A Dutch court on Wednesday ordered the agency responsible for housing asylum-seekers to pay a 50,000-euro ($54,000) penalty for every day that more than 2,000 migrants stay at an overcrowded center in the northern Netherlands that has become a symbol for the...
Israel must step in if it bans the UN agency that is a lifeline for Gaza, UN says
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations stressed Tuesday that if Israel puts in place new laws cutting ties with the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, the Israeli government will have to meet their needs under international law. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a...
Israel approves two bills that could halt UNRWA's aid delivery to Gaza. What does that mean?
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Israel's parliament has passed two laws that could prevent the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, a main provider of aid to Gaza, from being able to continue its work. The laws ban the agency, UNRWA, from operating and cut all ties between the...
