Migration & Refugees

OPINION: Bishop Appeals to U.N. to Rescue Minorities in Northwestern Iraq

By Bishop Bawai Soro
For decades, the minority Christian population of Iraq has been suffering hardships. But in the summer months of 2014 - and since the beginning of the military campaign by ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham, also known as ISIL or Islamic State) - the situation has gone from bad to intolerably worse.

Hamas Rocket Launches Don’t Explain Israel’s Gaza Destruction

By Gareth Porter
Israel and its supporters abroad have parried accusations of indiscriminate destruction and mass killing of civilians in Gaza by arguing that they were consequences of strikes aimed at protecting Israeli civilians from rockets that were being launched from very near civilian structures.

OPINION: From Schools to Shelters in Iraq

By Fred Abrahams
Using schools for shelter was a natural. When the Islamic State drove waves of people from the Sinjar area of Iraq in early August, most of them members of the Yazidi minority group, they fled first to the mountains and then to the relative safety of Iraqi Kurdistan. They camped out in whatever unoccupied structures they could find.

War Over but Not Gaza’s Housing Crisis

By Khaled Alashqar
“When the [Israeli] shelling started, I gathered up my family and headed for what I though was a safe place, like a school, but then that became overcrowded and lacked sanitation, so we ended up in the grounds of the hospital.”

New Operation Could Hide Major Shift in Europe’s Immigration Control Policy

By Apostolis Fotiadis
‘Mare Nostrum’ – the largest search and rescue immigration operation ever carried out in the Mediterranean Sea – has become an issue of bitter brinkmanship between human rights groups and anti-immigrant lobbies.

No Easy Choices for Syrians with Small Children

By Shelly Kittleson
The woman who walked into the Islamic Front (IF) media office near the Turkish border was on the verge of fainting under the hot Syrian sun, but all she cared about was her infant son.

Child Trafficking Rampant in Underdeveloped Indian Villages

By K. S. Harikrishnan
In a country where well over half the population lives on less than two dollars a day, it takes a lot to shock people. The sight of desperate families traveling in search of money and food, whole communities defecating in the open, old women performing back-breaking labour, all this is simply part of life in India, home to 1.2 billion people.

OPINION: Iraq On the Precipice

By Bill Miller
The catastrophic events in Iraq that are unfolding daily are more significant than at any point in recent memory.

Mass Deportations Don’t Squelch Migration Dreams of Hondurans

By Thelma Mejía
The clock marks 9 AM when a bus coming from the Mexican city of Tapachula reaches Corinto, on the border between Honduras and Guatemala. It is the first bus of the day, carrying children and their families sent back from a failed attempt at making it across the border into the United States.

With Sewing and Sowing, Self-reliance Blooms in Central Asia

By UN Women
In the small rural village of Svetlaya Polyana, not far from the city of Karakol in Issyk Kul Province, north-eastern Kyrgyzstan, there is no sewage system and 70 percent of households lack access to hot water.

The Age of Survival Migration

By Diana Cariboni
“Survival migration” is not a reality show, but an accurate description of human mobility fuelled by desperation and fear. How despairing are these migrant contingents? Look at the figures of Central American children travelling alone, which are growing.

U.N. Conference Set to Bypass Climate Change Refugees

By Thalif Deen
An international conference on small island developing states (SIDS), scheduled to take place in Samoa next week, will bypass a politically sensitive issue: a proposal to create a new category of "environmental refugees" fleeing tiny island nations threatened by rising seas.

Migrants Deported from the U.S. in Limbo on the Mexican Border

By Daniela Pastrana
The areas under the low bridges over a section of the canalised channel of the Tijuana River that runs along the border between Mexico and the United States have become enormous open-air toilets.

Israel, Hamas Set to Escape War Crimes Charges

By Thalif Deen
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in a rare moment of political candour, lashed out at Israel last week, questioning its "respect for the principles of distinction and proportionality" - particularly in the context of the civilian death toll that kept rising to over 2,000 Palestinians, with more than 75 percent civilians.

TNT and Scrap Metal Eviscerate Syria’s Industrial Capital

By Shelly Kittleson
Numerous mechanics, tyre and car body shops used to line the busy streets near the Old City of Syria’s previous industrial and commercial hub.

Public Offers Support for Obama’s Iraq Intervention

By Jim Lobe
Despite rising criticism of his foreign policy– even from his former secretary of state – U.S. President Barack Obama’s decision last week to carry out airstrikes against Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (ISIS) militants in northern Iraq enjoys relatively strong public support, at least so far.

U.S. Urged to Put Development Aid over Border Security

By Julia Hotz
When U.S lawmakers departed Washington for a month-long recess, they left behind a simmering debate over what to do about the tens of thousands of Central American children and adults that continue to cross the U.S. southern border.

No Victors or Vanquished in Brutal Gaza Conflict

By Thalif Deen
As the dust - and the gunpowder - settles after the month-long devastating conflict in Gaza, there were apparently no victors or vanquished.

Tajikistan Struggles to Stem Rise of Jihadi Recruits

By EurasiaNet Correspondents
Before he became a jihadist, Odiljon Pulatov would travel each year from Tajikistan to Moscow to earn money as a construction worker.

OPINION: Islamic State in Iraq: Confronting the Threat

By Emile Nakhleh
The Islamic State’s territorial expansion and barbaric executions in Iraq and Syria are a gathering threat and must be confronted. American air bombardment, however, is the wrong course of action, and will not necessarily weaken ISIS or DA’ISH, as it’s known in Arabic.

Swamped by Rising Seas, Small Islands Seek a Lifeline

By Thalif Deen
The world's 52 small island developing states (SIDS), some in danger of being wiped off the face of the earth because of sea-level rise triggered by climate change, will be the focus of an international conference in the South Pacific island nation of Samoa next month.
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