United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

About 700,000 Iraqis have gathered in the Kurdish north after being driven from their homes by jihadist fighters, the United Nations said Aug. 22 as it stepped up a massive aid operation to the region.

Some 100 undocumented immigrants on Tuesday launched a hunger strike at a reception center in Paranesti, in the northern regional unit of Drama, demanding to be released after having been issued with documents suspending their deportation.

According to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency, the detainees were recently transferred to the center from the eastern Aegean island of Samos.

The UN refugee agency said Tuesday it was poised to mount a massive aid operation for 500,000 Iraqis driven from their homes by jihadist rebels.
      

Turkish government and international agencies were not ready to deal with the problem of ‘urban refugees’ in the light of the mass influx with the Syrian civil war according to an expert Neither the Turkish government, nor the international agencies were ready to deal with the problem of “urban refugees” in Turkey, and they still have no strategy on the issue, former UNHCR office

At least 25,000 Iraqi nationals who have fled from jihadist violence in their homeland are seeking refuge in Turkey, with the number of figures sharply increasing since July as hundreds of thousands of Iraqis suffer at the hands of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

About 730,000 Ukrainians have left the country for Russia this year due to the fighting in eastern Ukraine, the European head of the United Nations agency for refugees said on Aug. 5, pointing to a far bigger exodus than previously thought.
   

Human rights groups on Thursday slammed a decision by a Greek prosecutor to shelve the investigation into the deaths of 11 immigrants who drowned during a controversial coast guard operation near the eastern Aegean islet of Farmakonisi in January.

UNHCR puts number of Ukrainian crisis refugees at 230K

GENEVA -- A total of 230,000 people left their homes in Ukraine because of clashes between Ukrainian and pro-Russian forcec, according to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR.

UNHCR commends progress in solving Roma issues

BELGRADE -- A UN official has commended Serbia's effort and progress in resolving the issues facing the Roma national minority, in comparison to the region.

Italy's navy said it rescued nearly 1,800 migrants in overcrowded boats in the Mediterranean over the weekend, and a merchant ship recovered five bodies from a sinking rubber raft off the coast of Libya.