Tag: Refugees and Displaced Persons

On the Ground in Wars and Disasters, the U.N. Plays a Vital Role

As conflicts rage in Ukraine and the Middle East, the picture offered to the world by the United Nations in New York is often one of division and paralysis. But far from U.N. headquarters things look different, its agencies mounting relief efforts in the most challenging of circumstances. On a recent day in the Gaza […]

Read More

Israel Orders Southern Gaza Residents to Evacuate

Amid a barrage of airstrikes, Israel sharply expanded its evacuation orders in the Gaza Strip on Sunday in preparation for an expected ground invasion in the southern part of the territory. The new orders, coming three days after the collapse of a weeklong truce, sowed confusion and fear among Gaza residents, some of whom have […]

Read More

Israel Resumes Offensive in Gaza Strip After Truce With Hamas Ends

A weeklong cease-fire in the Gaza Strip collapsed on Friday morning, with Israel and Hamas blaming each other for the breakdown of a truce that had allowed for the exchange of hundreds of hostages and prisoners, and that had briefly raised hopes for a more lasting halt to the fighting. The Israeli military said it […]

Read More

Israel’s Next Aim Is Southern Gaza. U.S. Urges Restraint.

Even before a temporary truce between Israel and Hamas expired early on Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had pledged to fight “until the end.” If Mr. Netanyahu makes good on his promises, the next phase of Israel’s offensive is expected to target southern Gaza, a complicated endeavor with competing factors at play. Southern Gaza is […]

Read More

Palestinians Fleeing to Southern Gaza Face Horrors

“We saw many dead bodies,” said Mazen Abu Habil, a 52-year-old father of eight, who eventually made it to Khan Younis, which has become a teeming place of refuge for displaced people. There, Gazans cram into hospitals and U.N. shelters, living in substandard conditions — chasing a meal a day, sleeping with barely any blankets, […]

Read More

U.S. Has Warned Israel to Fight More Surgically in Gaza, Officials Say

The United States has warned Israel that it must fight more surgically and avoid further mass displacement of Palestinians in its war against Hamas to avoid a humanitarian crisis that overwhelms the world’s ability to respond, according to senior Biden administration officials. The White House has told Israel that replicating the scale of its bombardment […]

Read More

What Today’s Migrant Crisis Looks Like to a Holocaust Refugee

Even with New York’s complicated history as a port for new arrivals, the photographs this summer of more than a hundred migrants sleeping shoulder to shoulder on the sidewalk outside the once-elegant Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown Manhattan were shocking. So were scenes of young migrants idling on sidewalks, stoops and park benches, desperate to work […]

Read More

In West Bank, Relief Over Prisoners’ Release Is Tempered by Worries About War

Since the war, new checkpoints have been erected and barricades built, making movement between some areas practically impossible. Violence by Israeli settlers has reached record highs, according to the United Nations. And the Israeli military has carried out nightly raids in the West Bank, in what it says are part of a counterterrorism operation. “They […]

Read More

Growing Numbers of Chinese Migrants Cross U.S. Southern Border

The surge of migrants entering the United States across the southern border increasingly includes people from a surprising place: China. Despite the distances involved and the difficulties of the journey, more than 24,000 Chinese citizens have been apprehended crossing into the United States from Mexico in the past year. That is more than in the […]

Read More

Can the Palestinian Authority Really Govern Gaza After the War?

Lanky and lightly bearded, Jihad Imtoor is the proud son of a fighter killed in the first intifada, or uprising, against Israel. His father was a member of Fatah, the political faction that controls the Palestinian Authority. But he has had enough of its rule in the West Bank. On a recent day, Mr. Imtoor, […]

Read More

As Pakistan Expels Afghan Migrants, Families Are Ripped Apart

On the day Baz Gul’s world was shattered, he was out scavenging garbage with his 10-year-old son, hoping to earn a few dollars to provide for his family of five. He and his son were arrested on Sept. 12 in the Pakistani city of Karachi during a raid on Afghan migrants. Mr. Gul, 30, was […]

Read More

Ukraine’s Children With Special Needs Suffer the ‘Huge Pressure’ of War

Maksym, 13, needs a life of stability and routines, but almost two years of war in Ukraine have given him anything but that. The boy, his adult brother and his mother fled their home city, Mariupol, under Russian attack. His father was captured as a prisoner of war. And Maksym has had to live with […]

Read More

Palestinian Mothers in Gaza Fear Giving Birth in a War Zone

“My experience during childbirth was a nightmare in every sense of the word, or something like a horror film,” said 29-year-old Wajiha al-Abyad. Her contractions started at around 9 p.m. on Oct. 29. “We called for an ambulance, but they told us they couldn’t come. The streets were empty and pitch-black, and there was no […]

Read More

‘It’s Like I Am Blind’: Waiting for Asylum in a British Hotel

Every morning, Mohammed Al Muhandes wakes up in a hotel in Leeds, England, and wonders how to pass the day. Along with dozens of other asylum seekers, he eats the same breakfast each morning, then returns to his room or walks in a nearby park. The 9.58 pounds, or $11.90, he is given each week […]

Read More

Israel-Hamas War Turns Gaza Into a ‘Graveyard’ for Children

“They are given a designation — ‘Unknown Trauma Child’ — until someone recognizes them,” he said. “The crippling thing is that some of them are the sole survivors of their family, so no one ever comes.” “More and more, it seems like a war against children,” said Dr. Abu-Sittah. Two weeks ago, the emergency room […]

Read More

Gifts That Change Lives

You can donate easily to the three nonprofits through the Kristof Holiday Impact Prize website, which I’ve used for five years now to support the nonprofits in my giving guide. Here’s what your contributions will accomplish: Help girls in Africa attend school. That’s the work of Camfed, the Campaign for Female Education: For just $150, […]

Read More

Ukrainians Fleeing Russian Occupation Cross Through Russia Back to Their Own Country

The Russian soldiers turned up at her home close to midnight with an ominous message. “They said, ‘If in two weeks you don’t have a Russian passport, we will talk to you in a different way,’” recalled Evelina, a social worker who until this month lived under Russian occupation in southeastern Ukraine. She didn’t wait […]

Read More

With Darfur in Its Sights, Paramilitary Group Is Accused of Atrocities

Bodies littered the road out of El Geneina, a town in western Sudan, as Dr. Rodwan Mustafa and his family sped down a bumpy road that led to the border with Chad and, they hoped, safety. A day earlier, rampaging Arab militiamen had grabbed Dr. Mustafa by the neck, accusing him of giving medical care […]

Read More

UK Plan to Send Asylum Seekers to Rwanda Is Unlawful, Supreme Court Says

Britain’s Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that a policy to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda is unlawful, delivering a major blow to the Conservative government, which has long described the plan as central to its pledge to stop small boat arrivals. Justice Robert Reed, one of the five judges who heard the case, said that […]

Read More

With 102 Workers Killed, U.N. Agency in Gaza Struggles to Provide Aid

Nearly all of the agency’s funding comes from donations from countries including the United States, Germany and the European Union, but it has been struggling financially for years. UNRWA entered 2023 with $75 million in debt and asked donors for $1.6 billion for its yearly budget, Ms. Touma said. But it had received less than […]

Read More

Israeli Shells Hit Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital as Battle With Hamas Intensified

Minutes after 1 a.m. Friday, as active fighting raged between Israeli forces and Hamas militants, a projectile streaked over Gaza’s largest medical complex and crashed into the center of the courtyard of Al-Shifa Hospital, a place where thousands of displaced Gazans had sought shelter. It landed just a few feet from Ahmed Hijazi, a social […]

Read More

Border Wall Falls Leave Migrants With Devastating — and Costly — Injuries

Ambulances rush them daily to hospitals in El Paso, San Diego and Tucson, Ariz., writhing in pain — bones poking out of arms and legs; skulls cracked; spines shattered. The men and women arrive on stretchers flanked by an agent in the telltale green uniform of the U.S. Border Patrol. “One look, and I know […]

Read More

The Israel-Palestine Conflict Has Been Raging for 75 Years

For the past month, normal life in Ramallah — a city in the West Bank usually known for its young population and its vibrant nightlife — has been brought to a standstill. Since Hamas’s deadly Oct. 7 attacks, Israeli forces have launched numerous raids on the West Bank, arresting people from all walks of life: […]

Read More

Thousands of Ukrainian Refugees Risk Returning Home for Medical Care

She lives in a French town near St.-Tropez that she calls “paradise,” where she and her young son have taken refuge from the war back home in Ukraine. But when Liudmyla Gurenchuk and her son needed to see doctors this fall, they made the 1,300-mile trek back to Kyiv, leaving the picturesque tranquillity of the […]

Read More

Tens of Thousands Evacuate Northern Gaza as Israel’s Invasion Advances

On Sunday, Anas Al Kourd, a paramedic at Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, drove south with a group that included his cousin, whose legs had been amputated after she was wounded in the war, and four children. Theirs was the only car in sight. Around them, people held their hands up in a gesture […]

Read More

Behind Hamas’s Bloody Gambit to Create a ‘Permanent’ State of War

Some factions had signed accords with Israel, meant to pave the way for a two-state solution. The Palestinian Authority, envisioned as a Palestinian government in waiting, had limited authority over parts of the West Bank and remained officially committed to negotiating an end to the conflict. Hamas, meanwhile, effectively sought to undo history, starting with […]

Read More

A New Answer for Migrants in Central America: Bus Them North

Miranda Villasmil guided her daughter and son past hundreds of huddled migrants, many still muddied and swollen from their trek here to Costa Rica from South America. The family of three carried just two grocery bags of their belongings from their past lives in Venezuela. When they reached the row of shuttle buses that would […]

Read More

As War Closes In, Many Remain in Northern Gaza

Others have chosen to head south despite the risks. The Israeli military, having cut off northern Gaza from the south, said it was offering four-hour windows for residents to head south safely in recent days. About 5,000 people used that lull to make the trip on Monday through areas held by Israeli troops, United Nations […]

Read More

As Gaza War Enters New Phase, Israel Faces Pressure Over Civilian Deaths

In the past six months, Israeli forces were transferred to reinforce those in the West Bank. But after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, they were replaced by smaller, less-experienced reserve units, since Israel needed its frontline forces in Gaza. Military analysts said the Israeli army had enough troops to wage the ground offensive while carrying […]

Read More

The Republicans Who Want to Invade Mexico

As president, Donald Trump reportedly floated the idea of shooting “missiles into Mexico to destroy the drug labs.” When his defense secretary, Mark Esper, raised various objections, he recalls that Mr. Trump responded by saying the bombing could be done “quietly”: “No one would know it was us.” Well, word got out and the craze […]

Read More