Dear Deeply Readers,
Welcome to the archives of Refugees Deeply. While we paused regular publication of the site on April 1, 2019, we are happy to serve as an ongoing public resource on refugees and migration. We hope you’ll enjoy the reporting and analysis that was produced by our dedicated community of editors and contributors.
We continue to produce events and special projects while we explore where the on-site journalism goes next. If you’d like to reach us with feedback or ideas for collaboration you can do so at [email protected].
Reporting on refugee issues around the world, including the political, economic and environmental causes of displacement and the people and ideas addressing forced migration.
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Since democracy returned to The Gambia last year, many Gambians are coming home, including from Libya with E.U. aid. Some returnees are warning others against the journey, but many are frustrated that returns and deterrence took precedence over reintegration and jobs.
Some 23,000 Syrian teachers took refuge in Turkey, and while many are unemployed, some found work in temporary schools for refugees. Syrian journalist Hosam al-Jablawi says many now fear for their jobs as Turkey tries to integrate refugees into the national system.
The diaries of Syrian couple Oudai and Alaa continue as they part in Jordan. In this second installment, Alaa copes with raising the children on her own while Oudai contends with repeatedly dashed expectations as Germany shifts the deadline for family reunifications.
Newlyweds Oudai and Alaa fled the war in Syria together and started a family in Jordan. Then Oudai traveled to Germany alone, hoping to bring his family a few months later. The couple kept a diary detailing their separation; this first installment begins in Syria.
Japan’s asylum system is more nuanced than the headline numbers suggest but it makes no effort to change its hardline image. A major donor to UNHCR, even as the population drops there is no sign of the drawbridge being lowered.
Thousands of undocumented children in South Africa have been unable to graduate since a government directive last summer. Advocates argue they’re being punished for their parents’ actions. Mxolisi Ncube meets migrant students whose professional dreams have been dashed.
With crisis-stricken Venezuela spilling refugees into Colombia and Brazil, politically expedient deportations make the situation worse. Aid groups are calling for international help.
Although much has been written about Syrian refugee women in Turkey being sold into marriage, little is known of the Syrian men selling themselves in wedlock. Two such refugees share their stories to shed light on what they say is a growing trend.
Neglect breeds crime and violence at Cara di Mineo in Sicily, where residents trade cigarettes in order to get by as they wait for asylum decisions. A new trial is expected to reveal the profiteers of Italy’s failing reception system.
As the route to Australia has shut, Indonesia is making a reluctant and contradictory switch from being a transit country. But refugees there often face a struggle to survive.
Experts weigh in on the U.N. refugee agency’s “zero draft” of the Refugee Compact, a global deal on transforming refugee response set to be agreed this year.
The E.U. is spending millions in development aid in sub-Saharan Africa in an effort to dissuade migration to Europe. But in countries like Burkina Faso, people think very differently about migration, IRIN News reports.
Most Syrians coming to Germany receive temporary protection instead of full refugee status, complicating efforts to integrate them. Miriam Berger reports on how one family from Damascus copes with the unknown while getting on with life in rural Bavaria.
Malaysia shelters thousands of mostly Rohingya refugees, recently joined by Syrians fleeing war. Yet the country offers few protections for refugees, and children bear the brunt of restrictions on education and work and the perpetual fear of arrest.
India has not signed the U.N. Refugee Convention, leaving thousands of Rohingya refugees excluded from public health and nutrition programs. Now refugees are petitioning India’s Supreme Court for protection against deportation and to live in “humane conditions.”
In our latest Deeply Talks, the Migration Policy Institute’s Kathleen Newland and Refugees Deeply’s Daniel Howden discuss some of the key issues they’re watching in a critical year ahead for refugees and migration.
The second part of our investigation from Sudan finds an illicit trade in Sudanese passports for Syrian refugees, overseen by a powerful individual known as ‘The Shark.’
Leaders from the private sector, human rights and refugee protection discuss big ideas for improving the global response to refugees on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos.
Along the dangerous Alpine route from Italy to France, Annalisa Camilli of Internazionale meets young migrants desperate to reach northern Europe, and the local volunteers trying to make sure their villages are not another deadly stop on the migration trail.
The head of the U.N. refugee agency, Filippo Grandi, speaks to Refugees Deeply about funding, politics and making sure refugees aren’t returned against their will.
Around Lebanon, men working as peer leaders are educating other men on the damage that child marriage does to girls and young women, in the hopes of convincing fathers to stop marrying off their daughters.
The first part of our new investigation finds key individuals in the Khartoum regime complicit in smuggling and trafficking. Reporting from Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea and the Netherlands reveals security services involved in a trade they are meant to police.
In a major global economic experiment, billions of dollars in aid and concessional loans have been promised to Lebanon and Jordan to create jobs for Syrian refugees. In our latest Deeply Talks, we discuss our investigation and answer community questions on the compacts.
We take a look at the major issues for refugees in the year ahead, while policy experts from around the globe explain what they’re watching out for in the next 12 months.
While Kenya’s massive Dadaab refugee camp is shrinking due to a U.N. program repatriating refugees to Somalia, drought and insecurity are pushing some of the returnees to come back to Kenya.
Despite growing bloodshed in Afghanistan, fewer Afghans are recognized as refugees in Europe and many are sent home to a country still at war and struggling to integrate massive numbers of returnees, Ruchi Kumar reports for IRIN News.
The story of one former desert driver and his struggle to escape the migration trade reveals the limits of an E.U. scheme to offer alternatives to the Sahara smugglers. Giacomo Zandonini reports from Agadez.
Amid rising violence in Mexico, populists are cracking down on Central American migrants in some towns along historic migration routes. Their rhetoric mirrors American anti-immigrant politics north of the border.
From the mass exodus of refugees out of Myanmar and South Sudan to escalating returns of Afghans and threats to send back Syrians, refugees faced a crisis of resources and institutions in 2017. We look back at some of the major developments this year.
We collected the best stories on refugees from 2017, as selected by refugee and migration experts and the readers and editors of Refugees Deeply.
A recent controversy in Germany over whether Muslim holidays should be recognized by the state highlights a complex debate across Europe over cultural and religious integration. Yermi Brenner reports on the reactions of Muslims and local authorities in Germany.
An increasing number of unaccompanied migrant children and teenagers are stuck on the Greek island of Lesbos due to a shortage of shelter spaces in Greece. They’re growing angry and frustrated while facing a lengthy wait to be transferred to the mainland.
Most refugees live in countries with scant mental health resources, despite a growing body of research on how displacement impacts mental health. In this edition of our ‘Experts to Watch’ series, we look at some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in this field.
Europe’s closing borders and the death toll in the Mediterranean are forcing asylum seekers to look further afield. An investigation into the migration routes out of Latin America into the U.S. and Canada finds Africans, Afghans and Iraqis enduring great risks.
Reports of abuse prompted Kenya to stop recruitment agencies from sending its citizens to work as domestic workers in the Middle East. Now it’s lifting the ban, and introducing new rules it says will ensure Kenyans don’t suffer at the hands of foreign employers.
In September 2015, as Europe veered between fear and compassion in response to the refugee crisis, the outline of a radical reform to refugee policy appeared in the journal Foreign Affairs. Its authors – Paul Collier, an influential development economist, and Alexander Betts, a social scientist and then-head of the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford – proposed a pathway for Syrian refugees into Jordan’s labor market.
As hundreds of thousands of Afghans return from neighboring countries, young graduates face discrimination, language barriers and a dearth of connections in a country many had never been to before, Valerie Plesch reports for Al-Fanar Media.
Colombia has the world’s most internally displaced people and a landmark IDP rights framework. In our Deeply Talks, Georgetown University’s Elizabeth Ferris and Colombian expert Oscar Ivan Rico Valencia examine how to reset the global agenda on internal displacement.
Asylum seeker Francine Kalala is suing South Africa’s government, claiming that two hospitals turned her away while in labor – forcing her to give birth in a train station. Activists say the neglect and abuse she suffered are rife in the country’s healthcare system.
The route from Turkey to Greece was once crowded with Syrian asylum seekers fleeing to Europe. But in recent months some refugees have begun to move in the opposite direction because of what they describe as a rise in anti-Muslim sentiment in host countries.
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