ISTANBUL, Jan 17, 2016 – In a major shift of policy, the Turkish Government has published new regulations which will allow many of the 2.5 million Syrian refugees in the country to apply for work permits. Registered Syrian refugees who have been in Turkey for at least six months will be allowed t...

Sofia, 28 January 2016 The UN Refugee Agency is extremely alarmed at reports of two dead bodies being found on the Bulgarian border with Serbia, last week. UNHCR is seeking further details after being alerted about the deaths by the Bulgarian Border Police. The two men, apparently, have died of c...

This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson William Spindler – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at the press briefing, on 5 February 2016, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. Some 4,000 refugees and migrants are currently reported to be living in the Calais "jungle" and almos...

UNHCR Press Release Budapest, 11 February 2016 UNHCR urges Central European leaders to show solidarity with refugees ahead of the V4 Summit The UN Refugee Agency is urging leaders in Central Europe to show greater solidarity with desperate refugees who seek sanctuary in the continent as war...

UNHCR is concerned by recent restrictive practices adopted in a number of European countries that are placing additional undue hardships on refugees and asylum-seekers across Europe, creating chaos at several border points, and putting particular pressure on Greece as it struggles to deal with large...

ATHENS, Greece, Feb 25, 2016 – Border closures in the Balkans may create an enormous and potentially critical refugee bottleneck in Greece, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi has warned. Grandi spent most of Wednesday (February 24) in Athens. meeting the Greek prime minister Alexis ...

Statements by High Commissioner, 8 March 2016 Mr. President, Thank you for welcoming me here. It is an honour for me to be here with you today to mark International Women's Day and to speak about it from the perspective of the United Nations refugee organization. Honourable members of Parli...

This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson Melissa Fleming – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at the press briefing, on 22 March 2016, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. This past Sunday, the provisions agreed between the EU and Turkey to stem the large-scale arrival of ref...

ATHENS, Greece, April 26 (UNHCR) – Syrian refugee Ibrahim Al-Hussein carried the Olympic flame through an Athens centre for refugees on Tuesday evening as part of the torch relay for the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro. The symbolic gesture was intended to show solidarity with the world's refugees a...

ATHENS, Greece, May 2 (UNHCR) – All Yasin Osman Ibrahim and his three-year-old son Abdulrahman could do was watch in horror as more than 500 migrants and refugees drowned two weeks ago, in one of the Mediterranean's worst shipwrecks in modern history. Clutching Abdulrahman to his chest, Yasin sto...