Tag Archives: refugees

By Ramzy Baroud This is not my geography teacher, or, more accurately it is not at all how I remember him. A series of APA images published by the British Daily Mail and other newspapers showed Hamad al-Hasanat lying dead in a mosque, surrounded by a group of Hamas fighters. On top of his lifeless body, as worshipers came to …

By Ramzy Baroud Whenever the word ‘refugee’ is uttered, I think of my mother. When Zionist militias began their systematic onslaught and ‘cleansing’ of the Palestinian Arab population of historic Palestine in 1948, she, along with her family, ran away from the once peaceful village of Beit Daras. Back then, Zarefah was six. Her father died in a refugee camp …

The UN on Thursday requested for $8.4 billion so that it can provide emergency aid and more permanent help to almost 18 million people in Syria and its neighbors affected by the Syrian civil war. The appeal includes funding for shelter, food, humanitarian aid and developmental support. UN agencies had initially asked for$2.9 billion to help 12.2 million people in …

After slamming the Canadian government for not doing enough to help Syrian refugees, critics took Conservatives to task for being selective in picking the refugees who will get asylum. Parliamentary secretary for the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Costas Menegakis faced several questions from the New Democratic Party (NDP) in the House of Commons on Friday – Menegakis was unrepentant …

The United Nations (UN) has called on Canada to do more to help Syrian refugees struggling with the Syrian war crisis. The call comes only a few days after the UN urged wealthier nations to help re-settle over 100,000 displaced Syrians. Canada, which has pledged to let in 1,300 refugees, needs to show its humanitarianism, Furio De Angelis, the representative …

By Ramzy Baroud Raed Mu’anis was my best friend. The small scar on top of his left eyebrow was my doing at the age of five. I urged him to quit hanging on a rope where my mother was drying our laundry. He wouldn’t listen, so I threw a rock at him. I didn’t mean for the rock hit him, …

Aid workers in the Middle East fear that they are on a verge of a major humanitarian crisis as millions of Syrian refugees will be cut off food assistance due to funding gaps. On Monday, the UN World Food Program said that it needed $64 million to fund its food voucher program for the month of December alone, and that …

A new report by the Norwegian Refugee Council and the International Rescue Committee released on Wednesday suggested that the plight of Syrian refugees fleeing the civil war has reached “a new level of hopelessness” as overstretched neighboring countries make it a lot more difficult to escape and developed nations like the US only resettle a small number of refugees. According …

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has asked for greater access to a Palestinian refugee camp near Damascus where refugees have had to live without water for 40 days. Deputy Commissioner General for the UNRWA Margot Ellis said that increased access to Yarmuk camp was top priority. “In the conversations we had with the government, we were imploring them, …

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu promised that his government will do whatever it can to stop Islamic State (IS) militants from capturing the Syrian Kurdish town Kobane, saying that the Turkish Parliament has approved military action in Syria. The IS has been advancing towards the town of Ain al-Arab, known among the Kurds as Kobane, which lies close to the …