Somalia's refugee exodus crossed a new threshold this past week, with more than a million people now having fled the country for the surrounding region, according to the latest UNHCR data. The most recent arrivals continue to cite insecurity and dwindling food resources as the main reasons for their...

Conflict is normally cited by displaced Somalis as the main reason for flight, but in recent weeks we have seen an increase in IDPs and refugees also citing difficulty in providing for themselves. Over the past seven weeks we have registered some 6,000 Somalis who have cited such difficulties - usua...

It was with sadness that UNHCR learned yesterday of the drownings of some 47 Ethiopians in a boat capsizing incident on Lake Malawi. The exact number of deaths has not been determined. According to the reports we received, villagers around the lake found a dead body on Monday and buried it. On Tues...

Somalia's national security minister has resigned after an attack by al-Shabab fighters on the country's parliament. The resignation of Abdikarim Guled late on Saturday came after the group set off powerful car bombs outside parliament and fighters armed with explosive vests, grenades and machine...

UNHCR on Thursday appealed to donors to urgently provide additional funding for its operations to help Sudanese refugees in South Sudan and neighbouring Ethiopia. Currently there are some 162,500 refugees in South Sudan and 36,500 in Ethiopia. The contributions we have received for South Sudan have ...

A new UNHCR population assessment of the Afgooye corridor west of the Somali capital Mogadishu has found a significant reduction in the number of displaced people living there. From data collated in May we estimate that up to 120,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) may still be living along t...

Embargo: 11:30 AM CET, 18 SEPTEMBER, 2012 Somalia’s Hawa Aden Mohamed wins the 2012 Nansen Refugee Award GENEVA, 18 September, 2012 – The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) announced today in Geneva that this year’s Nansen Refugee Award goes to Hawa Aden Mohamed, the founder an...

Two Somalis are suspected of having carried out a suicide bombing at a restaurant filled with Western military personnel on Saturday that killed three and wounded at least 15 Djibouti's Interior Ministry has said. Several members of EU naval and civilian maritime security missions were among tho...

Aid agencies, led by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), travelled to Maaxas in Hiraan Region on 28 May to assess the humanitarian situation on the ground. Maaxas is the fifth of ten newly accessible areas recovered from Al Shabaab control by the Somalia Na...

MOGADISHU, Somalia, August 18 (UNHCR) – Kadija is in shock. Over the past two weeks, the 32-year-old Somali has lost her livelihood, fled her rural home and ended up in a dismal settlement in one of the most dangerous cities on earth. "I don't have my own house and my children can't go out and pl...