The Things They Left Behind
Whenever you leave home, there’s inevitably something you crave: a food, a place, an item of clothing or just your own bed. It’s far worse when you have no time to pack. In the past year nearly 200,000 people have fled to Ethiopia to escape a brutal civil war in South...
Teacher’s vision brings education to hundreds in Pakistani refugee village
MIANWALI, Pakistan, December 8 (UNHCR) – When Aqeela started her teaching career 22 years ago in northern Pakistan, the toughest and most important lesson she learned was that she had to first educate the parents about the importance of letting their children,...
16 Days of Activism: Afghan girl embraces new beginning after escaping forced marriage
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, December 5 (UNHCR) – When her abusive, drug addict father told Zakia* that she must marry a man twice her age, the then 15-year-old was despondent. But after the Afghan refugee protested, she was barred from leaving the family home in the northern...
The forgotten refugees
Coping in a refugee camp is difficult at the best of times but when you are disabled, accessing communal services and living in temporary shelter brings added complications. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), with the support of donors like you, is working to address the...
Life Through a Lens
More than half of the 3 million people driven into exile by the conflict in Syria are children. Haunted by violence and loss, they have also been deprived of a voice. At Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan, a UNHCR workshop entitled “Do You See What I See” has been giving...
Family Ties
Syria’s bloody civil war has displaced almost half the country’s population, with more than 3 million refugees registered in the region. Over the past couple months alone, more than 200,000 Syrian Kurds have fled the besieged city of Kobane into neighbouring...
Q&A: A UNHCR experts looks at what forces Central American children to flee
MEXICO CITY, Mexico, November 12 (UNHCR) – The UN refuge agency on Tuesday released an important report on the unprecedented number of unaccompanied children who are on the run in Mexico after fleeing insecurity in the Central American countries of El Salvador,...
War, Sex and Survival
The 17-year-old girl – I’ll call her Juliette – unrolls a condom in front of a dozen women at the community centre in Lushebere camp, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). What she teaches them here today may change their lives forever. Her demonstration is part of...