They Fled from Our War. "Among the many consequences of the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, the plight of millions of Iraqi refugees is seldom mentioned. The stories of such people as Burhan Abdulnour, whom we met in Sweden in 2008, have hardly been told."
posted by homunculus
on Apr 19, 2010 -
11 comments
The United Nations Refugee Agency has a
Flickr page with nearly 3000 photos neatly sorted into
over 150 sets, most often by country, though sometimes by other themes, such as
photos taken by refugee children,
life in a refugee camp and
mixed migration. There are also
news sets, sorted by month. Some of the countries featured are ones that many associate with humanitarian disasters,
Timor-Leste,
Iraq and
The Democratic Republic of Congo, but there are also photosets from countries that few associate with refugees,
Panama,
Hungary and
France.
posted by Kattullus
on Sep 17, 2009 -
9 comments
Oh, I say old chap--do you mind not going all "
immigrant" on me, and spitting all over the place? Thank you very
much.
(how Britain proposes to solve the problem of integrating its migrant population)
posted by hadjiboy
on Feb 6, 2008 -
109 comments
IDP Voices is a site that lets people who are refugess within their
own countries
tell their life stories – in their own words. "The narratives in these pages are valuable complements to the official information on conflicts which governments and international organisations offer. These stories deal with the real lives of real people. The narrators share their personal experiences, their sensations, hopes and dreams, and the impact for them of being forced from their homes. The first IDP Voices oral testimonies project took place in
Colombia. IDP Voices from further countries will be added as the projects progress." The life stories are in English and Spanish and can either be read or listened to. You can
download the whole book of life stories here.
posted by Kattullus
on Nov 8, 2007 -
7 comments
Oops! A mud eruption probably triggered by oil exploration has been making thousands of Indonesians' lives miserable since May.
posted by thirteenkiller
on Sep 14, 2006 -
20 comments
500,000 Lebanese citizens are now homeless. That's out of a population of 3.8 million, according to Juan Cole. People in Southern Lebanon have received leaflets warning them to leave, but are trapped in their villages under Israeli bombings. The IDF has opened a 60-km front on the border, using tanks to probe Hezbollah. Meanwhile,
a ceasefire remains... elusive. I normally take the position that both sides are excessively violent, but this is a pretty sad picture of what's going on in Lebanon.
posted by spiderwire
on Jul 21, 2006 -
206 comments
What is the difference between refugees and expelled persons? Refugees leave home and land for fear of what would happen to them, or they were driven out. Expellees are told to leave their home country, often immediately. Their added and deep trauma is broken trust
"Modern Wars and the Civilian Experience as shown in my experience in World War II", by Greta Zybon
posted by PenguinBukkake
on Sep 17, 2005 -
2 comments
More than 30 feet of water stood over land inhabited by nearly one million people. Almost 300,000 African Americans were forced to live in refugee camps for months. Many people, both black and white, left the land and never returned.
"When Mother Nature rages, the physical results are never subtle. Because we cannot contain the weather, we can only react by tabulating the damage in dollar amounts, estimating the number of people left homeless, and laying the plans for rebuilding. But . . . some calamities transform much more than the landscape."
No, not Katrina.
The Great Mississippi flood of 1927. Author John M. Barry in his definitive work on the subject, "shows how a heretofore anti-socialist America was forced by unprecedented circumstance to embrace an enormous, Washington-based big-government solution to the greatest natural catastrophe in our history, preparing the way (psychologically and otherwise) for the New Deal." The author is a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Center for Bioenvironmental Research of Tulane and Xavier universities (whose web site is *understandably* not answering right now).
<Heading for the library to find this book>
posted by spock
on Aug 30, 2005 -
12 comments
Southeast Asian refugees, like other immigrant populations, have had a mix of experiences and successes since they began arriving in the U.S. in the 1970s. Among the refugees, two groups, the
Mien and the
Hmong, tribes who
populate the mountains of Laos and Thailand, fled when the Communists took over. Today, some
Mien, also known to some Asians as the Yao, continue to live in
China, where they are a recognized minority group and elsewhere. Large numbers of the
Mien people have settled in Portland, Ore., and California, and appear to be doing pretty well. The
Hmong settled primarily in Minneapolis and St. Paul because their military leader,
Gen. Vang Pao settled there. You may have read about the
Hmong man who killed six white hunters, claiming racial animosity, but before that occurred, the Hmong themselves have experienced
one tragedy after
another.
posted by etaoin
on Mar 29, 2005 -
17 comments
Lost Boys of Sudan is an amazing documentary about refugees from Sudan's
Darfur conflict finding haven in the US. It's premiering on PBS tomorrow. Their website has local PBS listings as well as locations and times of upcoming screenings in the US. From sleeping on the ground in a UN refugee camp to working at WalMart in Dallas, the men in the film undertake an enormously difficult, but ultimately life-saving journey.
posted by scarabic
on Sep 27, 2004 -
8 comments
The USA is sending the refugees from
Monserrat back home. Why? Because the threat from their volcano is no longer regarded as "temporary", but "permanent".
posted by Pretty_Generic
on Aug 20, 2004 -
24 comments
Coast Guard pulls over floating, propeller equipped '59 Buick driving to Miami - manned by Cuban refugees. "For four of the 11 people on board, it was not the first thwarted attempt to leave the communist island in a bizarrely converted vintage vehicle." (from
ABC news) Last year, they tried to do the same thing in a converted '51 Chevy Truck:
"The crew members of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter could not believe their eyes...Chugging along at a steady 13 kilometres per hour in the Straits of Florida was a bright-green 1951 Chevrolet truck...." (link to story, as reprinted in Free Republic, alas ) Sadly, the Coast Guard sunk the Buick - which looked a bit like a WW2 amphibious landing craft.
Here's a picture, on the blog of a Christian Evangelical (scroll down for story) who argues that the refugees are worthy of a special exception to US immigration laws, for their pluck and innovative brilliance.
posted by troutfishing
on Feb 7, 2004 -
25 comments
Saranda's Story. 'My name is Saranda and I am 13 years old. I moved to Liverpool from Kosovo three years ago ... '
posted by plep
on Jun 25, 2003 -
5 comments
Coming to America! Rejected by several countries, this relatively small tribe that has been living in slavery and in violent refugee camps is coming to the US.
NY Times reg. req.
posted by Plunge
on Mar 10, 2003 -
43 comments
Just a defacto "Nope". "Refugees" from the US seeking asylum in Canada will no longer have any hoops to jump through. The hoops are to be replaced by impenatrable legal barriers, otherwise known as "inking the deal".
posted by crasspastor
on May 7, 2002 -
6 comments
Call for permanent Jenin presence The disbanded United Nations fact-finding mission to Jenin has written to Secretary General Kofi Annan calling for a constant international presence in Palestinian refugee camps.
Alas, it was the UN that ran the refugee camp that was known as the bomb factory and home of the suicide bombers. Wouldn't an armed forcez be more effective?
posted by Postroad
on May 3, 2002 -
23 comments
North Koreans would rather drink poison than return Refugees seek asylum at the Spanish embassy in China.
"We are now at the point of such desperation and live in such fear of persecution within North Korea that we have come to the decision to risk our lives for freedom rather than passively await our doom," the group's statement said.
"Some of us carry poison on our person to commit suicide if the Chinese authorities should choose once again to send us back to North Korea," the statement said.
posted by norm29
on Mar 14, 2002 -
7 comments
If this story is true, then the Indonesian authorities have a lot of work ahead of them in combating corruption. Who's ever heard of the police openly working with smugglers to force refugees on to an overloaded boat
at gunpoint?
posted by jetgrrl
on Oct 24, 2001 -
4 comments
Operation Infinite Mercy : Emergency relief for
Afghan refugees fleeing Taliban rule and/or threats of American attack. Amid the scores of funds, accounts, websites, banner ads, and buttons that have popped up advertising ways to 'help the victims', it's been near-impossible to find somewhere online to make a donation to assist some of the
other people affected by the aftermath of September 11th...
posted by SenshiNeko
on Sep 25, 2001 -
19 comments
World's indifference to the Afghan tragedy If you read my article in full, It will take about an hour of your time. In this hour, 14 more people will have died in Afghanistan of war and hunger and 60 others will have become refugees in other countries.
A few months old, but well worth a read in current context ...
posted by walrus
on Sep 18, 2001 -
12 comments
There's a situation arising right now, between Australian, Norwegian and Indonesian governments. The issue?
A Norwegian freighter laden with 438 Afghan asylum seekers, stranded in the Indian Ocean. Today, Australia elite commandos
seized control of the Norwegian-owned "Tampa" and its human cargo and ordered the ship to return to international waters. Norwegian authorities, on the other hand, are
appealing to Australian authorities to help the refugees and the crew onboard "Tampa".
What should be done here, if anything, and by whom? And what about the situation in Afghanistan, that is causing these people to escape from there in the first place? (More:
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7)
posted by dagny
on Aug 29, 2001 -
52 comments
Elian's fathers rights were affirmed today, and
the decision is already online. One thing I love about the Internet is that things like this take nanoseconds to be available to the public (if the system's working right, at least!) -- where previously you had to rely on the newsmakers' spin on things, now you can read the decision yourself and come to your own conclusions.
posted by delfuego
on Jun 1, 2000 -
4 comments
I think this deserves the front page: the two Elian_True guys work for Playboy:
http://www.playboy.com/digital/inthenews.html
posted by baylink
on Apr 28, 2000 -
9 comments
