United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

When foreign policy expert Kemal Kirişci warned of "a mass exodus of refugees fleeing Afghanistan could spark another migration crisis" in April, his research received little attention.

Now, as the Taliban completes a rapid takeover of the country following the US and NATO decision to withdraw, his predictions may have already started to materialise.

The U.S. walked back on Aug. 4 remarks from senior officials regarding Afghan refugee flows amid a diplomatic row with Turkey, and voiced regret about the comments.

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State Department spokesman Ned Price said Washington "did not intend to single out any particular country as a destination for refugees."

A Belarusian Olympic athlete who claimed her team was forcing her to return home spent the night under protection and may be seeking asylum, officials said on Aug. 2.

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Sprinter Kristina Timanovskaya, 24, missed her chance of competing in Tokyo when the 200 meters heats went ahead without her in the Olympic Stadium.

Ramic spoke English and he became one of several young people who managed to feed their families by working as interpreters for UNPROFOR or other international organisations such as the UN refugee agency, UNHCR.

But while working as an interpreter, he had to witness some traumatic incidents, such as an artillery attack on the village of Konjevic Polje.

Turkey on July 4 expressed grief after a boat with 127 migrants on board sank off the eastern coast of Tunisia on July 3.

Some 84 of 127 migrants have been rescued by Tunisian authorities while the remaining are still missing.

As the world marks International Refugee Day with a record number of displaced people hit by ongoing conflicts and coronavirus pandemic on top of it, the U.N. Refugee Agency's representative for Turkey called on the international community to ramp up support given for countries hosting a large number of refugees and asylum seekers.

The U.N. refugee agency says war, violence, persecution and human rights violations caused nearly 3 million people to flee their homes last year, even though the COVID-19 crisis restricted movement worldwide as countries shut borders and ordered lockdowns.

Noting that Turkey hosts the most refugees of any country in the world, a U.N. representative said on June 16 that it should receive more support from other states in this regard. 

The EU's commissioner for home affairs, Ylva Johansson, on Monday (10 May) called for the bloc's countries to show "solidarity" with Italy after it took on more than 1,400 migrants arriving on boats over the weekend.

A new report by a Serbian human rights lawyer published on Wednesday said that the country only accepted 27 per cent of 223 applications for asylum last year, fewer than in 2019.

"The first conclusion that can be drawn from these figures is that the number of total decisions has dropped by 28 per cent in comparison to 2019 and was the lowest in the past four years," the report said.