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A volunteer life-guard helps a young girl out of the sea after the boat she used along with her family and other Afghan refugees to cross part of the Aegean from the coast of Turkey to Lesbos towards the end of 2015 crashed on a rock off the island's coast.

Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) Nicholas Haysom briefs the Security Council.

Burundian refugee Larson talks with a customer at his pharmacy in Nakivale refugee settlement in Uganda.

Central African Republic refugees at the Timangolo site in Cameroon, including mothers and young children, queue for food.

"It is easy to blame Europe or Schengen for security failures in our Member States, and wave the illusion that retreating behind national borders somehow immunises against - often home-grown - terrorists", said the EP President Schulz in his opening speech before the European Council of 17-18 December dedicated to pressing issues, such as migration, counter terrorism and the British referendum. "If we want to preserve our freedom of movement, then we must act fast and decisively."

Welcoming the Security Council's unanimous adoption of a blueprint for peace in Syria, a senior United Nations official has called on all sides to immediately stop using sexual violence as a tactic in the fighting tearing the country apart.

European leaders holding a year-end summit on Thursday were urged to bury their differences over the migration crisis and restore the security of the 28-nation EU's crumbling borders.

Growing insecurity, the lack of political moves towards reconciliation and worsening humanitarian conditions in Burundi, a country that tops the Global Hunger Index, are highlighted by MEPs in a resolution voted by a show of hands on Thursday. They welcome consultations under the Cotonou Agreement that could lead to suspension of EU aid to the Burundi government, and ask the EU and its member states to consider re-directing non-humanitarian EU aid to civil society there.

UNICEF Special Coordinator for the refugee and migrant crisis in Europe and Regional Director for CEE/CIS Marie-Pierre Poirier met with mothers and children in a child friendly space in Opatovac, Croatia.