Middle East and North Africa offers a comprehensive, evidence-based analysis of one of the world’s most complex and dynamic mobility landscapes where labour migration, protracted displacement, environmental stressors and socioeconomic transitions converge.
Hurricane Melissa, one of the most powerful storms ever recorded in the Atlantic, hit southwestern Jamaica on 28 October as a Category 5 system—the worst hurricane to hit the area since 1988—before crossing into eastern Cuba as a Category 3 the following day.
As the extent of the damage becomes clearer, the impact continues to grow in the provinces of Santiago de Cuba and Granma — the two most severely hit by Hurricane Melissa.
More than 54,000 people remain evacuated, 7,500 of them in state centers.
• One week after Hurricane Melissa passed through, more than 50 communities in the eastern region remain cut off due to flooding and infrastructure damage, according to Civil Defense reports.
Since the start of the conflict, some 164,000 people have sought refuge in neighboring countries, including an estimated 33,000 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), 35,000 in Ethiopia, 70,000 in Sudan, and 26,000 in Uganda.
UNHCR and the Commission for Refugees (COR) have responded to referrals of 312 individuals who had been in captivity on average between 5 to 9 months. They have all been accommodated in asylum reception centers for further legal screening and needs assessment.
In 2025, the Regional RRP is designed to target the needs of 2.53 million refugees and 1.84 million members of the host community in the five main asylum countries, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, and Uganda.
UNHCR has declared an internal Level 2 emergency for Ethiopia and Sudan due to the escalating crisis in South Sudan, which will remain in force for six months until November 2025.
UNOCHA reports that over 9.3 million children are expected to suffer from high levels of acute malnutrition between June 2024 and May 2025 in Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda.
As of April 2025, 15 Flow Monitoring Points (FMPs) were operational, monitoring internal movements and cross-border flows with neighboring countries, including Uganda (UGA), the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sudan (SDN), Ethiopia (ETH), Kenya (KEN), and the Central African Republic (CAR).
At least 110,000* severely acutely malnourished children supported by Save the Children in 10 countries could be left without access to life-saving ready-to-use emergency food and nutrition programmes as aid cuts hit supplies in coming months, according to a Save the Children analysis.
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, has provided shelter assistance to nearly 3,400 displaced families and distributed essential household items to 14,000 families across Yemen in 2024, thanks to the generous $7 million USD contribution from the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre (KSrelief).
As of February 13th, UNHCR estimates that approximately 279,620 Syrians have returned to Syria since December 8th, 2024. The figures derive from the triangulation of sources both inside and outside Syria, including UNHCR offices and Government sources in Türkiye, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt.
