Exploring the conflicts and political crises that cause refugees to flee and impact their treatment in host countries.
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As borders have tightened along the western Balkan route to Europe, more lone female refugees are arriving in Serbia having experienced violence and trafficking. Many who want to continue their journeys are using even riskier routes and never appear in official data.
In South Sudan, people are sheltering from conflict wherever they can, including a network of islands in the swamps of Unity State. On one island, where 2,300 displaced people live without access to clean water or toilets, cholera has become rife.
To find work, many Zimbabwean women illegally cross the borders into Botswana and South Africa. But during the crossing through the bush, they risk being attacked by “gumagumas” – gangs who rob and frequently rape their victims.
Following the attack that killed 42 Somali refugees off the coast of Yemen, we report from Djibouti on the desperate choices faced by refugees who fled to Yemen and now find themselves in the middle of another conflict.
Shoufu Collective Group of Recurring Volunteers Worked on the Island of Chios
Are You Syrious Civil Initiative of First Responders from Croatia who Tried to Support the Refugees on the Balkan Route
Are refugee volunteers slowly emulating the hierarchies and structures they once protested? The question is posed by the two volunteer collectives, Are You Syrious and Shoufu, as they reflect on the need to bear witness as well as deliver aid.
As severe hunger takes hold in northeast Nigeria, the U.N. estimates that nearly a half-million children under five will suffer from acute malnutrition this year, and 90,000 may die. Photojournalist Danielle Villasana tells the stories behind the devastating numbers.
This week marked the end of the sixth year of the war in Syria. On this grim anniversary we examine the deepening economic, social and other divisions that make it so difficult for refugees to return to Aleppo, the city that has become a bellwether for the country’s future.
James Dennison Research Fellow, Migration Policy Centre at the European University Institute
Andrew Geddes Director, Migration Policy Centre at the European University Institute
Teresa Talò Lead Analyst, Migration Policy Centre at the European University Institute
Geert Wilders’ anti-immigration party has had high levels of support throughout the Dutch election campaign. Yet Wilders’ success does not reflect hardening attitudes to immigration in the Netherlands, explain researchers James Dennison, Andrew Geddes and Teresa Talò.
Mercy Corps spokeswoman Christine Bragale speaks to Syria Deeply about Ankara’s decision to close the aid agency’s operations in Turkey, which has served as a base for the group’s aid deliveries to Syria.
Some Iraqis who fled across the Syrian border ahead of the Mosul offensive are now returning to Iraq. Many say their official IDs were confiscated in Syria, leaving them trapped in Iraqi displacement camps and unable to prove their identities.
Amid the revised executive order suspending refugee resettlement in the U.S., Austin Schiano explores what spaces are left for Syrian refugees in countries around the world.
The number of Africans crossing the Americas to seek refuge in the U.S. grew tenfold last year. Now survivors of that long, expensive and dangerous journey face shrinking prospects of reaching the U.S. and more hardships in Mexico amid Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Amid a renewed offensive on Mosul and U.N.-led Syria talks in Geneva, Middle East journalist and analyst Patrick Cockburn discusses the changing demographics of Syria and Iraq, and the complexities of displaced people returning to “liberated” cities in both countries.
There is no official record of the number of refugees who go missing crossing the Mediterranean Sea trying to reach Europe. Ingeborg Eliassen of the Investigate Europe network explores why a European database of migrant deaths does not exist.
Gerry Simpson Senior Refugee Researcher and Advocate, Human Rights Watch
The UNHCR’s offer of cash to returning Afghan refugees makes it complicit in the coercion of people it is mandated to protect, says Human Rights Watch’s Gerry Simpson, author of a new report on Pakistani forced returns. He argues the U.N. agency has crossed a red line.
New U.S. restrictions on asylum seekers have reinvigorated the discussion over the fate of 1.5 million Syrian refugees sheltering in neighboring Lebanon.
In light of a new U.N. report documenting atrocities against Rohingya in Myanmar, photojournalist Allison Joyce profiles Rohingya refugees who recently fled to Bangladesh and have harrowing stories to tell.
Thousands of Gambian refugees are returning from Senegal as the country’s new president pledges stability and reform. Exiled Gambian journalist Sanna Camara reports from the border region on the hopes of returning refugees.
Desperate decisions on the road to refuge left a young Afghan mother disabled, bereaved and stranded. Her story illustrates the appalling risks Afghan refugees are taking in the face of rising European asylum rejections and deportations.
As military operations in Myanmar’s Rakhine State enter their fourth month, Sally Kantar reports on the accelerated displacement of the Muslim Rohingya minority.
In the third part of our “Return to Afghanistan” series, Umer Ali meets transgender refugees who fear that being forced to leave Pakistan amounts to a death sentence.
Congress recently renewed a visa program for Afghans working with U.S. forces, but with far fewer openings than previous years. This has left thousands of Afghans living in fear as they wait out the backlog.
Barely able to feed themselves and their families, South Sudanese women in refugee camps are swapping their rations for ingredients to make siko, a highly alcoholic spirit. But selling it means they have to endure harassment and verbal abuse from their customers.
In-depth reporting and analysis on the global refugee crisis will be even more critical in the coming year. Here are some of the areas Refugees Deeply will be following in 2017.
Daniil Ukhorskiy Intern, Human Rights Watch
Children from the Calais camp not accepted into the U.K. are scattered across France, some in official centers, others on the streets. Daniil Ukhorskiy, a 17-year-old Human Rights Watch intern, describes the fate of fellow teens he met in the camp’s final days.
We collected the best stories on refugees from 2016, as selected by refugee and migration experts and the editors of Refugees Deeply.
This year saw more refugees displaced and more people dying at sea than ever before. We look back at the major milestones and significant policy shifts of 2016.
At the end of a year of growing crises and closing borders, we speak with Dr. Joanne Liu, the international president of Medecins Sans Frontieres, about how the medical charity has confronted the challenges of 2016 and the road ahead.
Mark Yarnell Senior Advocate, Refugees International
Kenya has pushed its deadline to shut down the world’s largest refugee complex into 2017, but conditions in Dadaab are deteriorating fast. Mark Yarnell from Refugees International says its residents face either starvation or returning to a conflict zone.
As Syria’s largest city falls to government forces after four years of fighting, Karam Foundation CEO and cofounder Lina Sergie Attar discusses the implications of Assad’s victory for the future of what was once Syria’s cultural and economic hub.
Lucy Hovil Senior Researcher, International Refugee Rights Initiative
The recent crisis in Burundi has reversed a major effort to repatriate Burundian refugees in the past decade. Lucy Hovil outlines her new research for the International Refugee Rights Initiative showing that the roots of the current displacement lie partly in the failure to reintegrate returning refugees.
Migrant advocates have urged an overhaul of U.S. policy on displaced Haitians amid a growing border crisis. Following Trump’s election, they are racing to persuade Obama to shift policies before leaving office, writes Sally Kantar in her second dispatch on the crisis.
Nimo-Ilhan Ahmed Ali Doctoral Researcher, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Researcher Nimo-Ilhan Ahmed Ali on the families in Somaliland doing their utmost to protect their children from making the perilous journey to Europe, including buying them taxis or paying for foreign degrees.
Aid agencies had planned for a massive exodus of residents from Mosul, but many residents decided to remain in their homes. Agencies now face a major challenge delivering aid to civilians inside a city in the midst of war.
While the rate of births by cesarean section in Lebanon remains considerably above internationally recommended levels, the incidence of the procedure among Syrian refugee women comes with additional risks and hardship, writes Federica Marsi, of Lebanon’s Daily Star newspaper.
Two Syrian brothers who are both journalists describe the harrowing decisions that led one to flee their hometown of Aleppo for Turkey, and the other to keep working from inside the besieged city.
While a compromise has been reached with Jordan that allows access to 85,000 Syrians in the lawless border area between the two countries, lack of control over supplies and security has deterred some agencies from taking part.
Nassim Majidi Founder and Codirector, Samuel Hall
In the final part of “Afghans on the Migration Trail,” migration scholar Nassim Majidi examines the difficulties faced by asylum seekers sent back from Europe to Afghanistan as they try to start new lives.
In an extract from her new book, researcher Nimo-ihan Ali looks at how unrealistic images of life in Europe shared on social media are prompting young Somalis to migrate.
As fighting intensifies in the area around Syria’s Khan Eshieh – the so-called “camp of return” – and UNRWA draws parallels with the Yarmouk camp in Damascus, thousands of Palestinian refugees who call Khan Eshieh home face displacement for a second time.
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