Sweden Resumes Payments to UNRWA

Displaced Palestinians at Rafah refugee camp, near the border with Egypt, southern Gaza Strip, 29 February 2024. (EPA)
Displaced Palestinians at Rafah refugee camp, near the border with Egypt, southern Gaza Strip, 29 February 2024. (EPA)
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Sweden Resumes Payments to UNRWA

Displaced Palestinians at Rafah refugee camp, near the border with Egypt, southern Gaza Strip, 29 February 2024. (EPA)
Displaced Palestinians at Rafah refugee camp, near the border with Egypt, southern Gaza Strip, 29 February 2024. (EPA)

Sweden said on Saturday it would resume suspended payments to the UN refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA), with a grant of 200 million crowns ($20 million).

Several countries, including the United States and Britain, paused their funding to UNRWA after accusations by Israel that a dozen of the agency's 13,000 staff in Gaza took part in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

The Swedish government said it had resumed payments after UNRWA agreed to strengthen internal controls and to extra checks on its employees, among other measures.



More Than 50,000 Refugees Return to Syria from Türkiye

A boy cycles past buildings which were damaged during the war between opposition forces and the Assad regime, in the town of Harasta, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)
A boy cycles past buildings which were damaged during the war between opposition forces and the Assad regime, in the town of Harasta, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)
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More Than 50,000 Refugees Return to Syria from Türkiye

A boy cycles past buildings which were damaged during the war between opposition forces and the Assad regime, in the town of Harasta, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)
A boy cycles past buildings which were damaged during the war between opposition forces and the Assad regime, in the town of Harasta, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

Türkiye’s Interior Affairs Minister said Thursday that a total of 52,622 refugees have returned to Syria from Türkiye in the first month following Bashar Assad’s removal from power on Dec. 8.
Speaking at the Cilvegozu border crossing between Türkiye and Syria on Thursday, Ali Yerlikaya said that more than 40,000 Syrians had returned with family members while some 11,000 individuals crossed into Syria alone.
“The voluntary, safe, honorable and regular returns have started to increase,” Yerlikaya said.
Türkiye has hosted the largest number of Syrian refugees since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011 — more than 3.8 million at its peak in 2022.