Stories

Since the Sudan conflict began in April 2023, millions have faced immense hardship. Through EU-funded IRC programmes, Dr. Mogahed Ilkeet, delivers life-saving care at the Tunaydbah camp in Sudan, near the Ethiopian border.

Shocked and hungry, families fled to Armenia with whatever they could carry, marking the near-total depopulation of Karabakh's Armenians. As refugees, they now make up 4% of Armenia's population. This conflict left thousands needing shelter, food, health, and psychosocial support.

Across East Africa, millions of displaced people are navigating the hardships of conflict and displacement with resilience and hope. The EU is supporting people in Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda with life-saving cash and nutrition assistance.

Conflict and climate change have pushed millions of people in South Sudan to the brink of starvation.

Since 2023, a consortium of 6 international humanitarian organisations has been carrying out a comprehensive cash distribution programme to empower individuals and families in several regions in Ethiopia, based on an assessment of the most acute needs.

Displacement is not just migrating from one place to another. You also leave your identity and the characteristics that make you who you are behind you. While facing many challenges during the route, you must rebuild your life and yourself in the place you came to.

Kenya is home to nearly 820,000 registered refugees and asylum seekers, many of whom have fled war-torn countries such as Somalia, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sudan. For them, escaping conflict often means enduring unimaginable hardships and rebuilding lives far from home.

Intisar, 40, and her 4 children had no choice but to flee after an airstrike completely destroyed their home in Anbar, Iraq. At the same time, her husband went missing during the attacks by the group known as ISIS in their city and was presumed dead. These events left her distraught and uncertain.

The Jenin refugee camp is located in the outskirts of the namesake city in the northern West Bank. Established in 1953 to house Palestine refugees forcibly displaced by Israeli forces in 1948, the camp hosts nowadays some 25,000 people.

Fleeing Colombia’s revived conflicts, Ecuador’s spiraling violence, or Venezuela’s continuous collapse, close to 300,000 people have crossed the Darien Gap - the deadly jungle isthmus connecting Colombia to Panama – as of June 2024, desperate for a measure of safety.

It starts with smoke – a single column of black smoke rising on the other side of the village. Then a second, a third. Houses are burning. Soon, the sound of gunshots and screaming. This has been the reality for millions of people in Cabo Delgado since the conflict started in October 2017.

20 years on, Darfur is once again on fire and a theatre of mass atrocities. Traumatised, shocked, and suffering the most horrific repercussions from the war, Sudanese refugees who manage to flee embark on risky journeys, often walking for days before reaching the Chadian border.

In the Rusayo IDP camp, located at the foot of the Nyiragongo volcano in North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, lives Salomé (alias), 37 years old, a mother of 11 children and a survivor of sexual violence by an unidentified armed group, while fleeing hostilities in Masisi territory.

Before the ground dried and hardened, Amburo and her husband were farmers. They grew enough maize to sell at the local market, and to provide for their 4 children. Life was hard, but a life all the same. There were times of joy.

Mahassin Mohammed Ibrahim was cooking a meal for her family in the Sudanese city of El Fasher when her front door swung open, and a hand grenade clattered to the ground. The ensuing blast showered the room with shrapnel, leaving the 39-year-old bleeding on the floor.

Life in Lebanon has always been marked by resilience, but the challenges faced by its people today are unprecedented.

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), some 330,713 people were internally displaced in Mali in May 2024. In the Timbuktu region, more than 5 out of 10 displaced people, including children, lack identification documents. This was the case for Deyloul’s 2 nephews.

Access to clean, safe water is a fundamental part of any effort toward providing a stable and healthy life for communities impacted by conflict and climate change.

Evelina and Alvard. They are 2 mothers who faced the same nightmare during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. They ran away for safety twice to the neighbouring Armenia during the conflicts