♦ Former Iraqi President Barham Salih was elected as the next head of the U.N. refugee agency, its first from the Middle East since the late 1970s. The United Nations General Assembly announced this on 19 December 2025. 

♦ The 193-member world body elected the Kurdish politician as the U.N. high commissioner for refugees by consensus and a bang of the gavel by Assembly President Annalena Baerbock. 

♦ At the age of 19 in 1979, Salih was reportedly arrested twice by Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party on charges of involvement in the Kurdish national movement and spent 43 days in detention. When he was released, he finished high school and fled to the United Kingdom to avoid further persecution.

♦ After Saddam was ousted by a U.S.-led coalition in 2003, Salih returned to Iraq and held various posts in the government. He became Iraq’s president in 2018, in the immediate aftermath of the Islamic State group’s rampage across Iraq and the battle to take back the territory seized by the extremist group. He served until 2022.

♦ Salih succeeds longtime agency veteran Filippo Grandi, whose second five-year term expires Dec. 31. Salih’s five-year term starts Jan. 1.