UNHCR: The UN Refugee Agency

South Africa: Searching for Coexistence

South Africa is one of the few countries in Africa where registered refugees and asylum-seekers can legally move about freely, access social services and compete with locals for jobs.

But while these right are enshrined in law, in practice they are sometimes ignored and refugees and asylum-seekers often find themselves turned away by employers or competing with the poorest locals for the worst jobs - especially in the last few years, as millions have fled political and economic woes in countries like Zimbabwe. The global economic downturn has not helped.

Over the last decade, when times turned tough, refugees in towns and cities sometimes became the target of the frustrations of locals. In May 2008, xenophobic violence erupted in Johannesburg and quickly spread to other parts of the country, killing more than 60 people and displacing about 100,000 others.

In Atteridgeville, on the edge of the capital city of Pretoria - and site of some of the worst violence - South African and Somali traders, assisted by UNHCR, negotiated a detailed agreement to settle the original trade dispute that led to the torching of Somali-run shops. The UN refugee agency also supports work by the Nelson Mandela Foundation to counter xenophobia.

Displaced Lebanese in Syria: Emergency Relief Supplies Arrive

A humanitarian convoy, loaded with emergency relief supplies from UNHCR's regional stockpile in Amman, Jordan, arrived in Damascus this week. Part of the shipment of mattresses, blankets, kitchen sets, soap and cooking stoves will be distributed to Lebanese refugees and asylum seekers in Syria while the rest will be trucked to Lebanon to help some 100,000 internally displaced living in community shelters and with host families.

In Syria this week, UNHCR distributed 6,544 mattresses, with the bulk going to Homs in the north, where we estimate 20,000 Lebanese are sheltering. UNHCR Syria has started distributing locally procured relief items including 3,300 pillows, bed linen, some 67,000 pieces of underwear and 6,400 diapers to host families and Lebanese in need.

Since the conflict began a month ago, some 160,000 Lebanese have fled across the border into Syria, with 1,500 now arriving daily. Most Lebanese are staying with Syrian host families or in schools, summer camps, community centres, mosques and hotels. While local generosity has been overwhelming, it is in danger of being overstretched.

Posted on 14 August 2006

The makeshift camp at Patras

Thousands of irregular migrants, some of whom are asylum-seekers and refugees, have sought shelter in a squalid, makeshift camp close to the Greek port of Patras since it opened 13 years ago. The camp consisted of shelters constructed from cardboard and wood and housed hundreds of people when it was closed by the Greek government in July 2009. UNHCR had long maintained that it did not provide appropriate accommodation for asylum-seekers and refugees. The agency had been urging the government to find an alternative and put a stronger asylum system in place to provide appropriate asylum reception facilities for the stream of irregular migrants arriving in Greece each year.The government used bulldozers to clear the camp, which was destroyed by a fire shortly afterwards. All the camp residents had earlier been moved and there were no casualties. Photographer Zalmaï, a former refugee from Afghanistan, visited the camp earlier in the year.