News

Over 3.6 Million People Reached by IOM in Ethiopia in 2020 for Prevention and Mitigation of COVID-19
Addis Ababa – The COVID-19 pandemic has brought on immense challenges for Ethiopia, a country whose already strained healthcare system faces enormous challenges. With a population of 110 million people there is only an estimated one doctor to 10,000 people in the country.

Explosion on Afghan-Iranian Border Damages IOM Reception Centre, Stalls Services to Afghan Returnees
Herat – A catastrophic fire on the border between Afghanistan and Iran, which injured 17 people according to Afghan officials, and caused USD hundreds of millions worth of destruction on Saturday, also damaged the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Islam Qala...

Mobile Health Teams Will Provide A Lifeline to Thousands of Armenia's Conflict-Displaced
Yerevan – Tens of thousands of Armenians have been displaced following the conflict in and around Nagorno-Karabakh last year.

IOM and UNHCR Welcome Colombia’s Decision to Regularize Venezuelan Refugees and Migrants
Bogota/Geneva – The International Organization for Migration (IOM) and UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, on Monday praised Colombia’s initiative to provide ten-year temporary protection status to Venezuelans in the country.

Asia-Pacific Document Examination Experts Reaffirm Commitment to Curb Transnational Organized Crime
Bangkok, Malé – New emerging technologies and COVID-19 have triggered opportunistic, predatory behaviour from organized criminal networks, which often utilize fraudulent travel documents and/or stolen or lost passports to facilitate migrant smuggling, trafficking in persons, and...

Migrants Play Key Role in Disaster Response, IOM Explores Diaspora’s Engagement in Humanitarian Assistance
Washington, DC – Many people, when they consider the contributions of migrants to their countries of origin, think first of remittance flows —the billions of dollars travelling annually between high income, “developed” destination countries to lower income regions in the Global...

IOM Helps Prevent the Spread of COVID-19 among Brazilian Indigenous and Riverside Communities
Brasília – Indigenous, rural, and riverside communities in northern Brazil comprise the most vulnerable populations to the spread of COVID-19.

IOM and UNDP in Belarus Join Forces to Fight Stigma During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Minsk – The International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) are partnering on a new initiative to counter stigma and discrimination faced by migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has been launched in the eastern European...

IOM Commends United States’ Inclusion of Migrants in COVID-19 Vaccine Roll-out
Geneva – The International Organization for Migration (IOM) welcomes the inclusion of migrants in the new US Administration’s national strategy for COVID-19 response and its commitment “to ensuring that safe, effective, cost-free vaccines are available to the entire U.S.

IOM Somalia Supports New ‘Telemedicine’ Enhancement for Migrants and Host Communities
Mogadishu – Somalia’s health system has been in a severely weakened state for decades due to conflict and humanitarian crises which have led to the displacement of more than 2.6 million Somalis.

EU Voluntary Relocations from Malta Top 270 People in 2020 amid COVID-19
Malta – The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has supported the voluntary relocation of 270 people from Malta to other EU Member States this year. Almost a quarter of those relocated this year from Malta were women, and 28 were children under the age of 12.

Health Funding Shortages in Yemen Put Thousands of Migrants’ Lives at Risk
Aden – COVID-19 has greatly disrupted the journeys of migrants making their way to and through Yemen, where migrant arrivals have decreased by over 80 per cent since the onset of the pandemic.