News Comment: UNHCR: Afghans Struggle to Seek Safety as Borders Remain Shut to Most
Bangkok, 1 December 2021 This news comment is attributable Indrika Ratwatte, Director of the Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific. UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is profoundly concerned by escalating risks faced by Afghans seeking to flee into neighbouring...
UNHCR urges support to address worsening gender-based violence impact on refugee, displaced and stateless women and girls
The following statement is attributable to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi One in five refugee or internally displaced women have faced sexual violence. Today, given the prolonged human rights and socio-economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic,...
UNHCR urges Tajikistan to halt returns of Afghans at risk
BANGKOK – UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is alarmed at the deportation of Afghan asylum-seekers by the Tajik authorities this week. 11 men, women and children were forcibly returned to Afghanistan on 11 November, prior to any examination of their claims for asylum and...
NHRC and UNHCR presented results of comparative analysis on nationality and statelessness in Uzbekistan
On 12 November 2021, the National Human Rights Centre of the Republic of Uzbekistan jointly with UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency conducted a workshop on nationality and statelessness with the goal to present the main findings of a comparative legal analysis on...
NHRC and UNHCR presented Uzbek translation of Handbooks for Parliamentarians on statelessness and refugee protection
On 11 November 2021, the National Human Rights Centre of the Republic of Uzbekistan jointly with UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, presented translation of Handbooks for Parliamentarians on the prevention and reduction of statelessness as well as on refugee protection in...
UNHCR supports the national population and housing census in Uzbekistan
On 10 November the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR donated 70 sets of computer equipment to the State Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan on Statistics. The State Committee will use this equipment to digitalize the data collection process during the pilot census of...
UNHCR urges governments to accelerate progress and resolve plight of world’s stateless
More action is needed to resolve the plight of millions around the world who are still without citizenship, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, urged today as it marked seven years since the launch of its #IBelong Campaign to End Statelessness. “Significant progress has...
UNHCR welcomes data collection on stateless persons in the 2021 population census of Kazakhstan
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, welcomes conducting the 2021 population census in Kazakhstan with the inclusion of a component on nationality and statelessness. UNHCR is pleased to cooperate with the Bureau of National Statistics of Kazakhstan to improve data collection...
UNHCR opens alternative route of aid to Afghanistan via Uzbekistan
On 15 October, an emergency airlift by the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, landed in Termez, Uzbekistan. The flight is part of UNHCR’s aid effort to Afghanistan and a massive operation to provide life-saving aid to the people of Afghanistan. The airlift was donated by a...
UNHCR supports the prevention of statelessness in Kyrgyzstan
On 22 September, the Representative of UNHCR for Central Asia, Hans Friedrich Schodder, met the Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Kyrgyz Republic – Minister of Digital Development (MDD) Dastan Dogoev, Director of the Department of Population...
The 1961 Statelessness Convention: 60 years of promoting and protecting the right to a nationality
Ensuring the right to a nationality and eradicating statelessness is achievable and more pressing than ever, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, stressed today, as the international community marks the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the 1961 UN Convention on the...
‘After the airlift’. News Comment attributable to UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi
The act of fleeing the country of one’s birth brings with it a harrowing sense of loss. The scenes at Kabul airport these past few days have sparked an outpouring of compassion around the world at the fear and desperation of thousands of Afghans. But when these images...