Stories

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.

After a decade of civil war in Yemen, millions of lives have been devastated, leaving over half the population struggling to find their next meal. For Abdulaleem, a father of 6, this harsh reality is a daily battle.

After a long and arduous search for safety, many refugees arrive in Thailand carrying trauma and suffering from health issues. The European Union and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), ensure that the most vulnerable have access to medical treatment and psychological first aid.

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.

Al Houri camp, located in Gedaref, eastern Sudan, has become a refuge for those fleeing the ongoing conflict. Among them is Ashraf, 48, who was forced to leave his home in Sennar when clashes erupted last July.

As the harsh Ukrainian winter approaches, their owners face a stark challenge: how to protect themselves and their damaged homes from the bitter cold and the dangers it brings.

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.

They were injured in the Syrian conflict, caught in the earthquake in Türkiye, or were affected by different diseases. What these experiences have in common is that all their lives have been fundamentally distorted, and they have gone on to live as people with disabilities.

Families in Gaza are stuck in a dramatic situation where regular markets have collapsed, while the available food and goods are scarce, with prices skyrocketing. The massive destruction of infrastructure has heavily impacted Gaza’s farms, normally a source of sustenance for the locals.

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.