Latest news with #UNHCR


Al Jazeera
6 hours ago
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
‘Like a wastepaper basket': Life as a child refugee fleeing home
If the global refugee population were just 100 people, 33 would be children, each in need of protection. By Hanna Duggal and Mohamed A. Hussein Sameer - not his real name - fled Afghanistan when he was just 17 years old. The Taliban had overthrown the government of President Ashraf Ghani - which his father worked for - placing his family at risk. 'I was doing well in my life, practising and exercising normally," Sameer, an aspiring mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter, tells Al Jazeera. "But when the Taliban took power … the situation became very hard, like putting us under pressure.' Sameer became a child refugee and endured a journey not unlike that of many other displaced and fleeing children. Today, of the 41 million refugees around the world, 13.3 million are children. In other words, there are more child refugees than the entire population of Belgium, or Sweden, or Portugal, or Greece. That also means that 33 out of every 100 refugees are children, each in need of international protection. To better understand the lives of refugee children - their challenges, vulnerabilities and resilience - we visualise what the world would look like if it had just 100 refugees. According to the latest figures from the UNHCR , 6.8 million child refugees (51 percent) are boys and 6.5 million (49 percent) are girls. While that division is fairly equal, refugee children often face distinct challenges based on their gender. For example, girls may be more at risk of gender-based violence and sexual assault, whereas boys may face different hardships - including other forms of physical violence. These forms of abuse and violence are more pronounced among unaccompanied minors. For Sameer, this came in the form of police beatings at country borders. 'The worst effect or part of the journey was when we used to cross the borders. And different countries' police used to stop or catch us, and they used to beat us in front of others,' Sameer says. 'They did not spare a child or adult or anybody.' In 2024, 44 percent (5.9 million) of child refugees were aged 5-11 years, followed by 32 percent (4.2 million) aged between 12-17 years and 24 percent (3.2 million) aged between 0-4 years. At each stage of childhood, distinct and compounding risks threaten healthy development. For example, young children are especially reliant on caregivers and at heightened risk of malnutrition, illness and disease. Any child refugee of school age will face disruption to their education due to access. However, in adolescents, the effects of a trauma can be compounded as they go through puberty: It's in this age bracket that mental illness most kicks in. In addition, a child's ability to articulate distress or seek help evolves over time, David Trickey, consultant psychologist and co-director at UK Trauma Council (UKTC), a project of the Anna Freud Foundation, tells Al Jazeera. 'Younger children find it more difficult to tell the carers and those around them what's going on internally.' If Sameer were one of the 100 child refugees, he would be among 21 from Afghanistan. In 2024, two-thirds of child refugees came from just four countries - 21 percent (2.8 million) were from Afghanistan, followed by 20 percent (2.7 million) from Syria, 14 percent (1.8 million) from Venezuela and 10 percent (1.3 million) from South Sudan. When the UN Refugee Convention was adopted in 1951, there were 2.1 million refugees. Now, there are 20 times that number. In 1951, 1 in every 1,190 people was a refugee and now that number is 1 in every 185, with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and civil wars in Syria and South Sudan, among major drivers of the crisis. It took Sameer one and a half years to reach the United Kingdom, making him a part of the 12 percent of child refugees who have travelled more than 2,000km (1,200 miles) to get to safety. According to an analysis of data from the UNHCR, 9 out of 10 refugee children have journeyed more than 500km (300 miles) from home. Half (50 percent) of all refugee children have had to travel between 500 and 1,000km (600 miles) from their homes. That's a distance that could be covered in a 10-12 hour drive or a two-hour flight. But most refugees fleeing their home country journey on foot, in boats or using other slower means of transport. Sameer tells Al Jazeera his journey was spent in the wet and cold. 'We passed through different countries, but we stayed most of the time in forest and mountain areas.' On top of the physical toll of travelling, Sameer faced brutality at the hands of border police he encountered when crossing into Turkiye and Bulgaria. 'They beat us in all senses. They used to poke at our clothes and send us back to the previous country.' Sameer's experience is a microcosm of the violence, unfamiliarity and grief - not just for lost family members, but also for a lost home - that accompany refugee life. 'The fact that they're fleeing something - that is dangerous in the first place, that has the potential to be traumatic. You're then taking them away from everything that they know that is familiar, possibly their friends, possibly even their families, going to somewhere that they don't know, a strange place, that all has the potential to get in the way of their recovery,' Trickey tells Al Jazeera. Sameer is one of the very small percentage of child refugees that has ended up in the UK. In 2024, the top host countries for refugees were Iran (1.8 million), Turkiye (1.4 million), and Uganda (965,000). He tells Al Jazeera how he finally ended up in the UK. 'First, when I tried to cross the Channel, the boat drowned and we were recovered by French police.' After taking another boat at midnight, Sameer reached British shores in the morning, ending an 18-month journey. Upon arriving in a host country, refugees often face additional risks like being held in detention centres. 'For some people, that's [being held in detention centres] the worst bit," Trickey told Al Jazeera. "You know, that was the biggest trauma.' Sameer had a more welcoming experience on arrival. 'The UK police was kind and very gentle. And they treated us very gently. They took us to a place where they provided us with the clothes, and also provided the food.' According to the UNHCR, about 153,300 children are unaccompanied or have been separated from their guardians and family. Sameer was separated from his brother in Turkiye. 'I was sent a different way and he was sent a different way, and since then I never saw my brother and I don't know about his wellbeing or whereabouts,' Sameer tells Al Jazeera. Some children travel alone because they have been sent by their parents to ensure their survival, while others are orphaned. Peter Ventevogel, senior mental health and psychosocial support officer at UNHCR, told Al Jazeera, 'If you're in a good social system, you feel safe, then you feel you're less affected. But for children, that effect is even stronger. 'We have these case reports of children who are in terrible situations, but as long as they're with their mother, if it's a young child, and the mother is able to convey that sense of safety, then you can buffer a lot of the consequences, which also means that in displacement settings where family structures are disrupted you see more issues among children.' According to research conducted by scientists at Queen's University Belfast and Ulster University, both in Northern Ireland, high rates of mental illness and symptoms among unaccompanied refugee minors were consistent across national and settlement contexts. But how they are treated once they reach their destination matters, say experts. Trickey tells Al Jazeera about two children from Afghanistan he has worked with. 'Both of them were from Afghanistan. Both arrived the same week in the UK. Both were unaccompanied. One was looked after by one particular local authority who found a foster placement that spoke the same language, had children the same age, and he just thrived. 'The other one, same age, same experience or similar experience, ended up being placed in this semi-independent hostel where no one spoke his language. The staff were pretty absent, and he really struggled. He really, really struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. So that stability and the connection that you're provided with can make a real difference to your capacity to process things that have partly happened in the past.' Sameer tells Al Jazeera,'Scenes of those things which I witnessed had a very bad effect on me and still when I remember, it [makes] me upset.' Research with refugee children finds the prevalence of emotional disorders to be generally higher than in non-refugee children. According to one study, the overall prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was 23 percent (one in four) in refugee children, that of anxiety disorders was 16 percent (one in six) and that of depression was 14 percent (one in seven). 'One of the things about trauma is it keeps you on this very high state of alert,' says Trickey. "And I think those without refugee status, they're living this constant fear of being returned to the place they fled.' But not all children experience trauma the same way, Trickey adds. 'A more important risk factor, a predictor of PTSD, is not how big the event was, but it's what you make of it. Were you afraid? Did you think someone was gonna die? 'And different children will find different things frightening. There'll be some people that actually experience the most awful things and seem pretty unaffected, and they do OK. There'll be some people that seem to be doing OK, and then they have, we can sometimes call it, latent vulnerability. And later on in life, that's when they develop difficulties.' Ventevogel tells Al Jazeera that often, in younger children, there may be more issues with withdrawal, because they cannot verbalise how they feel, for example where 'a child withdraws, stops playing with other children, or a child shows in play, in the way the child enacts issues, that there is something not OK. 'It's not diagnostic, but this can be an indication that there is something deeper,' Ventevogel says. Trickey explains that during a trauma-focused therapy session, a boy he was working with described what he was going through by comparing his brain to a wastepaper bin stuffed with "scrunched-up pieces of paper" that represent "all the bad things" he had been through. "And as I walk to school, they fall in front of my eyes. And when I lie down and go to sleep, they fall into my dreams," the boy told him. "But when I come and see you, we take them out of the bin, and we unscrunch them. Then we read them through carefully, then we fold them up neatly, and then we put them back in the bin. But because they're folded up neatly, it means they don't fall out the top, and I've got more room in my head to think about other things.' For Sameer, his ability to cope came down to his mindset. 'With the passage of time, I became used to the situation and I feel confident and fine now. And I hope, whatever problems or difficulties I face in the future, I will overcome and hopefully things will get normal.'


Russia Today
a day ago
- Politics
- Russia Today
UK starting to turn away Ukrainians
The UK has begun turning down asylum claims from Ukrainians, asserting that applicants can safely relocate to other parts of Ukraine, the Guardian has reported. A London-based legal firm told the newspaper on Friday that it receives weekly inquiries from Ukrainians whose refusal letters commonly state that they do not meet the threshold for persecution under the Refugee Convention, as applicants are deemed able to relocate to safer parts of Ukraine. The letters also cite the availability of public services in Ukraine and suggest that seeking help from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and local organizations. The firm noted that the growing number of refusals was linked to updates made in January to the UK Home Office's guidance, which now identifies regions such as Kiev and western Ukraine as 'generally safe.' Refugee status in the UK grants recipients five years of residency with access to work, benefits, healthcare, housing support, and family reunification. The UK also offers temporary visas through the Homes for Ukraine and Ukraine Family schemes, allowing stays of up to 18 months. As of March 2025, over 270,000 visas had been issued. A Home Office spokesperson told the Guardian that the UK has offered or extended sanctuary to over 300,000 Ukrainians since the escalation of the conflict in February 2022. The ministry emphasized that asylum claims are assessed individually and noted that the Homes for Ukraine scheme remains open. Several million Ukrainians have fled their country over the past three years. According to Eurostat data, around 4.3 million had been granted temporary protection in the EU as of March 2025. Russia, meanwhile, reported that 5.5 million people had arrived from Ukraine by the end of 2023. The outflow has been driven not only by the ongoing conflict but also by increasingly aggressive mobilization tactics used by the Ukrainian military. These efforts have led to violent confrontations between draft officers and those resisting conscription, with male Ukrainians risking criminal prosecution for fleeing the country. London has committed billions in military assistance to Ukraine since 2022. Moscow has repeatedly accused the UK and its Western allies of using Ukraine as a 'battering ram' against Russia and of pursuing the conflict 'until the last Ukrainian.'


Ya Biladi
a day ago
- Politics
- Ya Biladi
Geneva meeting urges UN to grant «refugee status» to Sahrawis in Tindouf
On the sidelines of the 59th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, held from June 16 to July 9, a meeting focused on the right of return for Sahrawis was held on June 25 in Geneva, organized by international advocacy groups. «The conference aimed to advocate for the right of return of Sahrawis held in the Tindouf camps in Algeria», Abdelouahab Gaïn, president of the Africa Watch Human Rights Association, told Yabiladi. «These camps are the scene of ongoing human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, rape, torture, and degrading treatment that undermines human dignity», said Gaïn, who took part in the meeting. Participants called on the international community to intervene and ensure the protection of those held in the Tindouf camps, in line with international human rights conventions and the resolutions of the UN Human Rights Council. Gaïn also noted that an appeal had been made to UN special rapporteurs on human rights to urge Algeria to conduct a census of the population in the camps. Mustapha Salma's Call from Mauritania The Africa Watch president also deplored the fact that residents of the Tindouf camps are still denied refugee status in accordance with the 1951 Geneva Convention and its 1967 Protocol. This status would allow displaced persons the option to return to their country of origin or settle in a host country. Gaïn emphasized that the camp population is also denied freedom of movement. Permits to leave the camps are issued sparingly by Algerian authorities and the Polisario Front. Thousands of kilometers away, Mustapha Salma—an outspoken critic of the Polisario leadership since his fallout with the group in 2010—echoed this concern on the occasion of World Refugee Day, marked each year on June 20. He recalled UN Security Council resolutions calling on Algeria to register Sahrawis living in the camps. «Refugee status is a contract between the host country and the asylum seeker, coordinated through the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees)», he explained on social media. «Once the application is approved, the UNHCR assumes responsibility for the refugee, in coordination with the host country and its institutions». Salma warned that such a development is deeply feared by the Polisario. «Stripped of its authority over the Sahrawis in the Tindouf camps, the Polisario Front would no longer be able to freely recruit them or exploit them for its political agenda», said the exile, currently based in Mauritania.


The Guardian
a day ago
- General
- The Guardian
‘We don't want to stay here': UN accused of abandoning refugees in Niger
There is no shade from the sun nor protection from sandstorms in the deserts of Niger and so, for almost 300 days, the refugees stranded there have stood in protest with a single message: 'We don't want to stay here.' About 15km (8 miles) from the nearest town of Agadez, the 2,000 refugees in the camp feel they have been isolated from the world, kept out of sight and earshot and abandoned by those they feel should be helping them – the Nigerien government, the EU and the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR. Many of the refugees have fled conflict in Sudan, but found their attempts to reach safety in Europe thwarted after being pushed back by north African countries paid by the EU to prevent people crossing the Mediterranean. Fearful, and reluctant to return to their home countries, they have become stranded in Niger. While UNHCR says it does everything it can with the resources it has, the agency has become the focus for refugee frustrations in the camp, where they have little access to medical care or education. From July, they will no longer receive food aid. 'UNHCR's role is very weak and they treat us without much humanity; they have little role in protecting us, which makes us vulnerable,' says Abdulmalik, a Sudanese man who says he has been in the camp for more than seven years. Abdulmalik says there is no access to healthcare and that Nigerien authorities are heavy handed, beating and imprisoning refugees whenever they raise complaints. He himself was imprisoned in 2020 after a protest during which a large part of the Agadez centre burned down. 'We live in a desert, 15km from the city without the most basic necessities of life. This is our suffering,' says Yousef Ismail, another Sudanese refugee who is part of the protests. 'Food was cut off [by UNHCR, at the request of the government] from us in February as punishment. A widowed woman was beaten just because she demanded her rights. In the same month, four refugees died due to the lack of a health centre,' says Ismail. UNHCR has announced that because of funding shortfalls, from next month it will only provide food aid to the most vulnerable refugees in Agadez. Sign up to Global Dispatch Get a different world view with a roundup of the best news, features and pictures, curated by our global development team after newsletter promotion A UNHCR official who works in the region, who refused to be named, said they understand the frustrations, but that funding cuts and restrictions from the governments they work with limit the options. They said resettlements happen on an individual basis but the process is slowed because third countries, such as those in Europe, offer very limited numbers of spaces for refugees. Moctar Dan Yaye, from Nigerien NGO Alarme Phone Sahara team, says he understands why the refugees are so frustrated with UNHCR and want to be relocated to safer countries. 'It's normal for people being kept for years, who are not being integrated, to become frustrated and lose patience. UNHCR should use this and push others to help them,' he says. Marc Montany, an activist who supported a refugee protest group in Libya, says UNHCR can often take a patronising approach to refugees and not take their concerns seriously. 'There's a sense of disregard, really not treating them with the sensitivity required for people fleeing war and probably subjected to crimes against humanity,' he says. Jeff Crisp, a former senior UNHCR official, says the agency finds it difficult to respond to discontent. 'It has a tendency to resent what is perceived to be the ingratitude of people that it is trying to help. Some of its staff are quick to label refugee protesters as 'troublemakers'.' Even while the refugees in Niger have been protesting, more have arrived with reports of people being rounded up and deported from north Africa. Alarme Phone Sahara estimated that in April more than 2,000 people were pushed back to Niger from Algeria and almost 800 from Libya. It previously estimated 31,000 were pushed back from Algeria in 2024. 'It's unacceptable seeing people left in the desert. I can see it happen but can't stop it. This is the unfairness of the EU policies – they say they care about human rights but then create these problems,' says Yaye.


Iraqi News
2 days ago
- Politics
- Iraqi News
Syrian architect uses drone footage to help rebuild hometown
Tal Mardikh – Syrian architect Abdel Aziz al-Mohammed could barely recognise his war-ravaged village when he returned after years away. Now, his meticulous documentation of the damage using a drone helps to rebuild it. 'When I first came back, I was shocked by the extent of the destruction,' said Mohammed, 34. Walking through his devastated village of Tal Mardikh, in Syria's northwestern Idlib province, he said he could not recognise 'anything, I couldn't even find my parents' home'. Nearly half of Tal Mardikh's 1,500 homes have been destroyed and the rest damaged, mainly due to bombardment by the former Syrian army. Mohammed, who in 2019 fled the bombardment to near the Turkish border, first returned days after an Islamist-led offensive toppled longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December. The architect, now based in Idlib city, had documented details of Tal Mardikh's houses and streets before fleeing, and afterwards used his drone to document the destruction. When he returned, he spent two weeks carefully surveying the area, going from home to home and creating an interactive map showing the detailed conditions of each house. 'We entered homes in fear, not knowing what was inside, as the regime controlled the area for five years,' he said. Under the blazing sun, Mohammed watched as workers restored a house in Tal Mardikh, which adjoins the archaeological site of Ebla, the seat of one of ancient Syria's earliest kingdoms. His documentation of the village helped gain support from Shafak, a Turkey-based non-governmental organisation which agreed to fund the reconstruction and rehabilitation of 434 out of 800 damaged homes in Tal Mardikh. The work is expected to be completed in August, and includes the restoration of two wells and sanitation networks, at a cost of more than one million dollars. – 'Full of hope' – Syrians have begun returning home after Assad's ouster and following nearly 14 years of civil war that killed over half a million people and displaced millions of others internally and abroad. According to the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, more than 600,000 Syrians had returned home from abroad, while around 1.5 million internally displaced people have gone back to their regions of origin. The agency estimates that up to 1.5 million Syrians from abroad and two million internally displaced people could return by the end of this year. Around 13.5 million currently remain displaced internally or abroad, according to UNHCR figures for May. In Tal Mardikh, Alaa Gharib, 45, is among only a few dozen residents who have come back. 'I lived in tents for seven years, and when liberation came, I returned to my village,' said Gharib, whose home is among those set for restoration. He is using a blanket as a makeshift door for his house which had 'no doors, no windows, nothing'. After Western sanctions were lifted, Syria's new authorities are hoping for international support for post-war reconstruction, which the UN estimates could cost more than $400 billion. Efforts have so far been limited to individuals or charities, with the government yet to launch a reconstruction campaign. Architect Mohammed said his dream was 'for the village to be rebuilt, for people and life to return'. He expressed hope to 'see the Syria we dream of… the Syria full of hope, built by its youth'.