Refugees

Afrikaners, white South Africans long reviled as the architects of a racist state, are now being recast by Donald Trump as the victims of one.

The U.S. president has accused South Africa’s Black-majority government of plotting to seize white farms and failing to stop “violent attacks on innocent disfavored minority farmers.” His top adviser, white South Africa-born billionaire Elon Musk, has accused some of the country’s politicians of actively promoting a “white genocide.”

Standing outside the Ukrainian American Community Center, Oleksii Chyrka's anxiety is increasing.

"We are uncertain; we have no idea what to do next," Chyrka tells NPR through a Ukrainian interpreter.

As soon as this week, things could drastically change for Chyrka who, along with his wife, and three kids, could lose his legal status in the U.S. after living here since 2023. That could also mean he will lose his work permit, and his jobs as a cabinet maker and FedEx driver.

At least 90 Palestinians have been reported killed in an Israeli strike on a displacement camp in southern Gaza which Israel said targeted Hamas’ military chief, who was an alleged mastermind of the October 7 attacks.

Footage from Al-Mawasi, which has been designated as a safe zone for Palestinians fleeing the fighting elsewhere, shows bodies in the street and destroyed tents.

Israel struck the southern and central Gaza Strip on Monday to put more pressure on Hamas, following a weekend strike targeting the militant group's leadership, which killed scores of Palestinians who had sought shelter in a makeshift camp.

Two days after the Israeli strike turned a crowded swathe of Mawasi near the Mediterranean coast into a charred wasteland littered with burning cars and mangled bodies, displaced survivors said they had no idea where they should go next.

Israeli forces waited weeks to target Rafa Salameh, the commander of Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade, at his family’s compound in southern Gaza, hoping that a more senior Hamas leader, Mohammed Deif, Hamas’s top military commander, would arrive.

The patience of the Israelis appeared to pay off for them, who believe Deif traveled to Salameh’s compound this weekend, according to the New York Times. Israeli forces subsequently carried out airstrikes on it, even though it was inside a designated humanitarian zone.

A record-breaking 120 million people have been forced to flee their homes by war, violence and persecution – the 12th year in a row the number has increased, the UN refugee agency said.

The global displaced population is now equivalent to that of Japan, the agency said.

New conflicts in Sudan and Gaza contributed to the rise, which the UN refugee agency chief Filippo Grandi called a “terrible indictment on the state of the world”.

"The hospital is like a prison. There is no medical care here, it's just a place to sleep. I haven't left the hospital building for four months now," a Gazan named Mohammed told the Egyptian website Mada Masr.

The U.N.'s migration and refugee agencies expressed concern over Biden administration plans for new asylum restrictions in the United States and said the right to asylum is fundamental.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday unveiled plans to enact immediate significant restrictions on migrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border as the White House tries to neutralize immigration as a political liability ahead of the November elections.

An Israeli airstrike triggered a fire that killed 45 people in a tent camp in the Gazan city of Rafah, officials said on Monday, prompting an outcry from global leaders who urged the implementation of a World Court order to halt Israel's assault.

Palestinian families rushed to hospitals to prepare their dead for burial after a strike late on Sunday night set tents and rickety metal shelters ablaze.

A possible Biden administration plan to begin allowing refugees from Gaza into the U.S. has faced significant pushback, with critics calling attention to potential national security risks.

"We demand that your administration cease planning for accepting Gazan refugees until you adequately answer our concerns and focus your attention instead on securing the release of U.S. hostages held by Hamas," read a letter to President Biden signed by 36 Republican senators last week.