UN News Today 14 May 2025 |

Over 40,000 Sudanese refugees flee to Chad in just one month

More than 40,000 Sudanese have fled to eastern Chad in the past month to escape intensifying violence in Darfur.

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, reported on Wednesday that most of the new arrivals are women and children.

Many have come from Zamzam camp and the city of El Fasher, locations targeted by paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, who’ve been fighting soldiers from the military government for more than two years.

In Chad, the high numbers of those arriving are putting significant strain on overwhelmed resources.

Aid teams say that many refugees arrive exhausted after walking for days because they are unable to afford transport.

They report being victims of targeted attacks, looting and sexual violence.

Numerous children have been injured, families separated and others remain missing, the refugee agency said.

Immediate needs in Chad include shelter, food, medical care and psychological support but the $409 million refugee response appeal is only 20 per cent funded.

Syria’s returnees desperately need help to start over 

Syrians trying to rebuild their lives in their war-torn country urgently need the support of the rest of the world to help them start again, UN aid agencies said on Wednesday.

Hopes rose this week in Damascus following Donald Trump’s move to end punitive sanctions – but after more than 13 years of civil war that ended with the fall of the Assad regime last December, many communities today face a range of basic problems.

These include unreliable access to electricity, clean water and healthcare.

The destruction of public records is also preventing returnees from accessing essential services or claiming housing and land rights, according to the UN migration agency, IOM.

Its Director-General, Amy Pope, insisted that Syrians were resilient and innovative but that they needed help, now. “Enabling (them) to return to a country that is on the path to stability and progress is critical for the country’s future,” she insisted.

A new IOM report from more than 1,100 communities across Syria found that work is scarce, partly because farming and markets are still struggling to recover.

Shelter construction is also needed urgently, while unresolved property issues continue to prevent people from rejoining their communities.

Since January 2024, the UN agency has recorded more than 1.3 million returnees previously displaced within Syria, in addition to nearly 730,000 arrivals from abroad.

Call for Venezuela to end secret detention of political opponents

To Venezuela, where top independent human rights experts have urged the  authorities to stop the reported practice of holding political opponents incommunicado.

In an alert on Wednesday, they insisted that these “targeted detentions” were illegal and amounted to enforced disappearance, a major human rights violation if proved and potentially an international crime.

They maintained that using secret detention was a deliberate strategy by the State “to silence opposition figures…and to instill fear among the population”.

The mission pointed to a widespread lack of “effective judicial protection” for civil society in Venezuela and accused State security forces of colluding with the Public Prosecutor’s Office.

The services allegedly responsible for detentions include the national intelligence service, the national guard and military counterintelligence.

The mission’s independent rights experts also maintained that criminal courts and the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice were also “complicit” by ensuring that the alleged crimes went unpunished.

The Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela was created by the Human Rights Council in 2019; its members are not UN staff, and they work in an independent capacity.

Daniel Johnson, UN News

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