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On Tuesday, March 7th, Russia’s top parliamentarian dealing with the Ukrainian refugee influx into Russia — dealing, that is, with the people who have fled Ukraine as a result of U.S. President Barack Obama’s 2014 coup overthrowing Ukraine’s democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych — presented the first-ever comprehensive number of asylum-applicants from Ukraine who have received asylum there after that February 2014 coup. The Russian government had never before publicly provided a number, but does have an established system of processing refugees, including assignment of official refugee status, which «allows the recipient various social benefits, including unemployment compensation» and so each Ukrainian refugee has a file with the government. As reported by Tass:  Russia has received more than 2,500,000 refugees since the outbreak of the conflict in eastern Ukriane, Yuri Vorobyov, Deputy Speaker of Russia’s Federation Council (upper house of parliament) and Chairman of the Committee for Public Support to Residents of Southeastern Ukraine, said on Tuesday.

Editor's note: This article was originally published on August 13, 2013; it was updated on August 29, 2014 to reflect the latest information. Syria’s civil war is the worst humanitarian disaster of our time. The number of innocent civilians suffering — more than nine million people are displaced, thus far — and the increasingly dire impact on neighboring countries can seem to overwhelming to understand.

Three years after it began, the full-blown civil war has killed over 190,000 people, half of whom are believed to be civilians. Bombings are destroying crowded cities and horrific human rights violations are widespread. Basic necessities like food and medical care are sparse. The U.N. estimates that over 6.5 million people are internally displaced — an increase of more than two million in just six months. When you also consider refugees, over half of the country’s pre-war population of 23 million is need urgent humanitarian assistance, whether they still remain in the country or have escaped across the borders.

Three million Syrians have registered with the United Nations High Commission of Refugees, who is leading the regional emergency response. But hundreds of thousands more await registration.

This site is dedicated to informing people about the ongoing, US Alliance-imposed Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide that as of 2012 is associated with post-2001 violent and non-violent avoidable deaths totalling 7.2  million and Afghan and Pashtun refugees totalling 5-6 million – an Afghan Holocaust ( a huge number of deaths) and an Afghan Genocide as defined by Article 2 of the UN Geneva Convention (see: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ) which states: “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”Also utterly ignored by Neocon American and Zionist  Imperialist (NAZI)-perverted and subverted Western Mainstream media are the 1.2 million people who have died world-wide since 9-11 due to US Alliance restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry from 6% of world market share in 2001 to 93% in 2007, the breakdown (as of 2015)  including 280,000 Americans, 256,000 Indonesians, 68,000 Iranians, 25,000 British, 14,000 Canadians, 10,000 Germans, 5,000 Australians and 500 French.

As of January 2014  deaths from the Afghanistan War include approximately 7 million violent and non-violent excess deaths of Indigenous Afghans since 2001 and 3,417 US Alliance deaths (see: http://icasualties.org/oif/ ).As of January  2014 it is estimated from the latest UN Population Division data that in Occupied Afghanistan post-invasion non-violent excess deaths total 5.5 million.  Assuming expert US-Australian advice that the level of violence has been 4 times lower in the Afghan War than in the Iraq War where the ratio of violent deaths to non-violent avoidable deaths was 1.5 million/1.2million = 1.25, then post-invasion violent deaths in Afghanistan can be estimated at 1.25 x 5.5 million/4 = 1.7 million. Post-invasion violent and non-violent avoidable deaths total 5.5 million plus 1.7 million = 7.2 million; and post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 3.0 million (90% avoidable and due to US Alliance war crimes in gross violence of the Geneva Convention – Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War demand that an Occupier must supply life-sustaining food and medical requisites “to the fullest extent of the means available to it” (see: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/y4gcpcp.htm ) but according to the WHO (see: http://www.who.int/countries/en/ ) the “total annual expenditure on health per capita” permitted in Occupied Afghanistan is $50 as compared to $8,608 in Occupier US, $3,322 in Occupier UK, $4.086 in Occupier France, $4,371 in Occupier Germany  and $3,692  in Occupier racist, white Apartheid Australia).  

There are 3-4 million Afghan refugees plus a further 2.5 million Pashtun refugees generated in NW Pakistan by the obscene war policies of war criminal Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Obama – this carnage involving 4.5 million post-invasion violent and non-violent excess Afghan deaths constitutes an Afghan Holocaust and an Afghan Genocide as defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention (see: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ).

Wars, conflict and persecution have forced more people than at any other time since records began to flee their homes and seek refuge and safety elsewhere, according to a new report from the UN refugee agency. UNHCR's annual Global Trends Report: World at War, released on Thursday (June 18), said that worldwide displacement was at the highest level ever recorded. It said the number of people forcibly displaced at the end of 2014 had risen to a staggering 59.5 million compared to 51.2 million a year earlier and 37.5 million a decade ago. The increase represents the biggest leap ever seen in a single year. Moreover, the report said the situation was likely to worsen still further. Globally, one in every 122 humans is now either a refugee, internally displaced, or seeking asylum. If this were the population of a country, it would be the world's 24th biggest.

"We are witnessing a paradigm change, an unchecked slide into an era in which the scale of global forced displacement as well as the response required is now clearly dwarfing anything seen before," said UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres. Since early 2011, the main reason for the acceleration has been the war in Syria, now the world's single-largest driver of displacement. Every day last year on average 42,500 people became refugees, asylum seekers, or internally displaced, a four-fold increase in just four years.

According to the United Nations, the war, in which pro-Russian separatists are fighting to throw off rule from Kiev, has killed more than 2,600 people and driven nearly a million from their homes in east Ukraine.

Rebels in Donetsk, the biggest city under their control, said they were close to recapturing its airport from Ukrainian troops who had defended it since capturing it two months ago."The airport is 95 percent under our control. Practically, we are holding it by now. Some remaining Ukrainian troops need to be cleared," said Aleksandar Timofeyev, a leader of one of the main rebel units in Donetsk. "The Ukrainian army is retreating. It's more of a flight by now. Reasonable ones give up their weapons and go. Others stay in the ground for good."A rebel source said an attempt to storm the airport was under way: "It will soon be over".

Losing control of the airport in Donetsk would be a humiliating reversal for government forces that recaptured it after going on the offensive in June. Ukrainian forces abandoned the airport at the other rebel stronghold, Luhansk, on Monday.

The ongoing civil war in Syria and its spillover effects continue to inflict a devastating human and humanitarian toll on neighbouring Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan, a senior United Nations relief official said today, warning that rising numbers of displaced persons, increasing pressure on refugee hosting countries and dwindling international support left the UN “racing against the clock” to meet the needs on the ground. Describing the Syria crisis and its fallout as “the biggest humanitarian crisis we face today in the world,” John Ging, Operations Director for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), who just returned from a week in the sub-region, told reporters at Headquarters that “in fact, it is a disaster for millions and millions of people…which, sadly and tragically, is only getting worse and worse.” He said the unprecedented numbers of affected people reveal the scale of the unfolding tragedy, with an estimated 200,000 people inside the country killed and 10.8 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. In addition, some 3.2 million people have fled to neighbouring countries and 6.4 million internally displaced. He said further that 2.8 million children are out of school, putting an entire generation at risk.

Israeli forces shot and wounded at least 2,617 Palestinians with live and rubber-coated steel bullets through October, the Palestinian Red Cross said Sunday, as clashes carried on into the new month.A Red Crescent spokesperson told Ma'an that at least 760 Palestinians were shot with live rounds across the occupied Palestinian territory, while another 1,857 were hit with rubber-coated steel bullets.He said that a further 5,399 Palestinians were treated for excessive tear gas inhalation during the period, while another 246 were injured in other ways, including assault by Israeli soldiers and burns from tear gas canisters.The spokesperson said that it brought the total injured during October to 8,262 Palestinians.

While Palestinians agree that a number of Palestinians were shot dead while carrying out attacks -- ultimately claiming 10 Israelis' lives -- footage and witness testimony have raised serious doubts over the Israeli army's version of events in many of the other cases.Moreover, Palestinian, Israeli and international rights groups have said that in the majority of cases, Israeli forces needlessly killed their alleged attackers when they posed no imminent threat, a practice Israeli group B'Tselem referred to as "extrajudicial executions."Amnesty International said last week that Israeli force appeared "to have ripped up the rulebook and resorted to extreme and unlawful measures." The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Raad al-Hussein said: "The high number of casualties, in particular those resulting from the use of live ammunition by Israeli security forces, raise concerns of excessive use of force, and violations of the right to life and security of the person."

The wave of unrest that swept the occupied Palestinian territory last month seemed unabated at the start of November, as fresh clashes left more Palestinians injured on Sunday.In the central Gaza Strip, Israeli forces shot and injured two Palestinians with live rounds east of al-Buriej refugee camp, medics told Ma'an.

Warning of a further “dramatic” worsening of the humanitarian situation in Iraq, a senior United Nations relief official today urged increased international support to assist millions in need and to rebuild areas retaken from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) so people can return to their homes “voluntarily and safely.” “The human cost of the crisis is devastating. We are extremely worried that all indicators point to a dramatically worsening situation in the months ahead,” said the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Kyung-wha Kang in a news release issued by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). According to the news release, Ms. Kang visited Baghdad and Erbil to discuss the humanitarian crisis, where she spoke with women “who had lost virtually everything.” She is currently on a visit to the region, which will include stops in Jordan and Turkey before wrapping up on Sunday, 6 December.

Ms. Kang stressed that responding to the basic needs of these people will require increased capacity, as well as improved access and security is of utmost importance, adding that insecurity “puts the whole aid operation in Iraq at risk.” Voicing concerns at the impact of economic crisis in the Kurdistan region and in Iraq, she urged the international community to step forward and provide urgent funding for lifesaving assistance, stating that “if this doesn’t happen, the impact will be terribly damaging.” “Funding is needed to keep programmes open and to help rebuild areas retaken from ISIL so that people can return voluntarily and safely to their homes,” Ms. Kang explained at the end of her two-day mission in Iraq. According to the UN, nearly 10 million people in Iraq are now in need of some form of humanitarian assistance and close to 3.2 million people are internally displaced since January 2014. Further, OCHA estimates indicate that the aid response efforts in the country are critically underfunded, forcing humanitarian partners to close scores of lifesaving programmes.