In 2025, the MENA region faced overlapping crises including conflict, displacement, economic collapse, disease outbreaks, and climate shocks, placing children at risk and disrupting access to services.
As of 31 December, over 1.3 million Syrians have returned back home since December 2024, with more than 3.7 million registered Syrian refugees continuing to reside in host countries in the region.
The February 2026 airstrikes on Iran triggered a rapid escalation of risks across the region, intensifying gender-based violence (GBV) exposure in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, while further degrading already fragile protection systems and service delivery structures.
Health care in the Middle East and wider region has come under attack about once every six hours on average since conflict escalated a month ago across Lebanon, Iran, and Israel, Save the Children said.
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.
After more than a decade of conflict, Yemen remains one of the world’s most complex and protracted humanitarian crises. The country continues to face the compounded impacts of conflict, climate change, economic collapse, and the near-total breakdown of public services and institutions.
This study examines gendered experiences of arbitrary detention in Al-Hol and interrogates core assumptions of women’s alleged links or family ties to ISIL/Da’esh.
Despite urgent needs, 62 per cent of UNICEF’s response remains unfunded. Without timely support, the most vulnerable children risk missing access to critical, lifesaving services.
The fall of the Assad government on 8 December 2024 marked a significant turning point in Syria’s political and humanitarian trajectory. This turn of events presents an opportunity to end one of the largest displacement crises in the world including for millions of internally displaced Syrians.
During the reporting period, the security in Syria has deteriorated. As of mid-July 2025, As-Sweida has experienced a sharp escalation in sectarian violence; and IDF has launched several airstrikes, not only in the southern governorates, but also at the Syrian Defense Ministry and near the presidential palace in Damascus.
Yemen remains one of the world’s most acute and complex humanitarian crises. In 2025, protracted conflict, economic decline, and extreme weather driven by climate change have left more than 19.5 million people in need of humanitarian assistance.
As of 15 May 2025, UNHCR estimates that over half a million – 501,126 – Syrians have crossed back to Syria via neighboring countries since 8 December 2024. This brings up the total of 861,966 Syrian individuals that have returned to Syria since the beginning of 2024.
As of 8 May 2025, UNHCR estimates that some 481,730 Syrians have crossed back to Syria via neighboring countries since 8 December 2024. This brings up the total of over 842,570 Syrian individuals that have returned to Syria since the beginning of 2024.
Since the fall of the former government on 8 December 2024 until the end of March 2025, some 372,000 Syrian refugees had returned to the country, while other refugees continue to express their intention to return home.
UNHCR is engaging with thousands of refugees in neighboring countries, often with daily contact through helplines, surveys, focus group discussions, and other communications channels, listening to their concerns, providing up-to-date information, and understanding their perceptions and intentions around return.
