Tag: Europe News

Protests broke out overnight in the capital, Minsk, and other cities, ahead of preliminary results announced on Monday, which showed longtime President Alexander Lukashenko had won 80 per cent of the vote, thus securing a sixth term in office. Thousands were arrested in the protests, which continued for a second night, international media reported on Monday. Show maximum restraint Speaking… Read More

The first time I met Roma people in the Western Balkan region was in 1999, while I was working in Montenegro. I had just come out of a few hard years in South Sudan and Rwanda, and I was looking forward to coming closer to home. I was working for an NGO and spent my days in the Roma camp… Read More

Anne-Marie Deutschlander, the acting regional Director for Europe of the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), appealed to the Polish authorities to facilitate access to asylum procedures. UNHCR urged Poland to give asylum-seekers access to territory and asylum. European Court of Human Rights decided that Poland’s denial of access to asylum procedure to several asylum-seekers had been a… Read More

In paying tribute to the thousands of mainly Muslim men and boys brutally murdered in the July 1995 massacre during the Balkan wars, António Guterres pledged that they will never be forgotten. “A quarter century ago, the United Nations and the international community failed the people of Srebrenica. As former Secretary-General Kofi Annan said, this failure will ‘haunt our history… Read More

Now into its tenth year, the Syrian conflict has created more than 5.5 million refugees seeking shelter in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. “It is very important that refugees, internally displaced and stateless people are included in national public health responses. Only if everybody is safe – we can all be safe.” @Refugees warns that #COVID19 puts another 200,000… Read More

Home Owners of Ukraine for Sustainable Energy Efficiency Solutions, also known as HOUSES, was initially designed to help Ukrainians lower their energy costs, better their livelihoods and reduce the country’s carbon footprint. Since its launch in October 2018, it has helped hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians in 24 oblasts (administrative regions) to manage their homeowners’ associations, develop energy efficiency projects… Read More

The appeal follows reports of failure to assist, and even push back, vessels carrying desperate people in one of the world’s deadliest migration routes, amidst the fears and disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic. These developments are occurring as departures from Libya during the first quarter of the year rose four-fold over the same period in 2019. “Reports that Maltese… Read More

A global effort is needed now and in the months ahead, to fight the coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic, according to the United Nations, and the organization is demonstrating how cooperation in all corners of the world is helping lessen the effects of the virus on the most vulnerable. Read More

The UN refugee agency UNHCR, and children’s agency UNICEF, which co-ordinate the refugee education response on the Greek islands – as well other services including safety, sanitation, health care and nutrition, in liaison with the Greek government – have appealed for emergency funds to extend remote learning for refugee children whose education has been severely disrupted by the coronavirus. “We… Read More

Zahir Tanin, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative and head of the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), told the Security Council on Friday, that Kosovo is especially vulnerable to threat of a wider outbreak.    “Even as heroic efforts are being made by medical personnel, the healthcare resources of Kosovo are stretched thin”, he said, during his first regular briefing to the… Read More