The Boy Who Was Buried Alive and Survived
Thirty-three-year-old Sarratou will never forget the day when dozens of heavily armed men ambushed her village in Nigeria’s Borno State. It was 10 o’clock in the morning and she was at home with three of her four children. The gunshots rang in their ears as they...
The Inventors of Azraq
The barren, rock-strewn expanse of Jordan’s northern desert looks like it could be the backdrop for a science fiction movie. The only comfort this featureless, Martian landscape offers to the more than 15,000 Syrians who now call this place home is an escape from the...
Pulled in Two Directions
“Our life before the war was very ordinary,” says Wazzam, thinking back to the years his family spent in Raqqa, Syria. “Our doors were open all night. We feared nothing. It was difficult at times to find work, but our minds were at peace because it was safe.” The long...
A Double Refugee Spreads Hope
As a decades-long civil war raged in southern Sudan, young Khan Malual took refuge in neighbouring Kenya. Only nine years old, he travelled alone and spent the next six years growing up in Kakuma refugee camp. Khan was finally able to return home and reunite with his...
Stateless in West Africa
Lisette, 20, was born and raised in Côte d’Ivoire. To make a living, she sells grains of millet at the local market in Zuenoula. But without ID documents to prove her birthplace, or her ancestral ties to Burkina Faso, she might as well be invisible. Bereft of a...
Shakespeare in Za’atari
Twelve-year-old Wiam Yousef Al-Ammari has not been to school since her family fled Syria in January 2013. But that hasn’t stopped her from studying Shakespeare. She was one of 80 young refugees who recently staged “King Lear” at Za’atari camp in Jordan, exploring...
Fire and Rain
Rain pours down on the scorched ruins of what was, until just a few weeks ago, a refuge for thousands of people displaced inside the volatile North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Dozens of former inhabitants, mainly women and children, gather...
A Wedding in Wartime
In Syria, I’m told, wedding celebrations can last up to a week—and sometimes even a month. The night before the wedding, the groom is typically fêted at home or at the hamman. On the day of the ceremony, the bride spends hours getting ready with young relatives and...