Stories

The sound of water flowing from a tap should be ordinary, not a luxury. Nevertheless, for hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, such a familiar everyday thing as water in their own homes has become a reminder of a past that did not have a war.

In the heart of Aby-Adi, a town in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region, which was affected by conflict between 2020 and 2022, 48-year-old Birzaf Gebreabezg’s stood out among the crowd.

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.

The Darien Gap, the only overland link between South and Central America, spans more than 60 miles of swamps, dense rainforest, rushing rivers, and rugged mountains. This extraordinary yet treacherous jungle is among the most dangerous migration routes in the world.

Civilians in northern Mali are caught in the crossfire of an escalating conflict. Often wrongly associated with non-state armed groups, they bear the brunt of retaliatory attacks, with violations perpetrated by all parties to the conflict, and suffer from the absence of basic services.

Halyna’s daughter Sofiia was born with short bowel syndrome and oesophageal atresia, a rare congenital disability that prevents a baby from digesting food because their oesophagus has not formed properly.

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.

Access to education, menstrual hygiene management, and psychosocial support are crucial for children growing up in refugee settlements. Thanks to funding from the European Union, Finn Church Aid (FCA) is addressing these challenges through the INCLUDE project.

730 days later... And the pain is still as fresh as the first day. On 6 February 2023, a powerful earthquake shook 11 provinces in Türkiye, leaving more than 53,000 dead, 107,000 injured, and 164,000 buildings in ruins. In an instant, millions of lives were changed.

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.

The air shimmers with dust around Yaqshid School, a cluster of temporary buildings in a corner of this displacement camp. Inside one of the rooms, 20-year-old teacher Umulkheir Moallim commands the attention of 25 young students with hopeful eyes.

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.

War changes everything. For those caught in its grip, survival often hinges on resilience, resourcefulness, & community support. In Ukraine, where the horrors of conflict have scarred countless lives, Ukrainians have not only embraced this lesson but have made it the foundation of their resilience.

Silwan, a Palestinian neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem, has become a focal point in the ongoing tensions over house demolitions. The area faces pressure from Israeli settler groups seeking to turn the land into a national park linked to the nearby City of David archaeological site.

In the Tigray region of Ethiopia, the convergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and conflict at the end of 2020 resulted in a significant disruption to education. Approximately 2.4 million school-aged children were denied the right to education for 3 academic years.