June 3, 2011
| Matt Pennington
| Tagged as: Afghanistan, Humanitarian Response, Asia
Last weekend, my colleague Lynn and I drove about two hours west from Mazar-e-Sharif to Sheberghan, the capital city of Jawzjan province, to meet with recently displaced families. Since 2009, violence in the north has risen due to increased Taliban presence, and the number of newly displaced families has increased by 300%. So we were eager to hear from Afghans about their reasons for fleeing and better understand the challenges they face in Sheberghan.
July 14, 2010
| Dawn Calabia
| Tagged as: Kyrgyzstan, Asia
Refugees International advocates, Dawn Calabia and Maureen Lynch are currently in Kyrgyzstan following the violence that began in June. This is the story of one Uzbek grandfather they met who survived the attacks.
We heard gunshots and shouting.
I sent my daughter and grandchildren out the back door and I went to the bathroom to look out the window. I saw a tank and cars with armed men, some with rifles, and others with axes and pieces of metal.
January 8, 2009
| Camilla Olson
| Tagged as: Burma, Malaysia, Asia, Statelessness
Sayed and Jamil (not their actual names) both came to Malaysia alone as young boys. They are part of a growing trend in Rohingya families to send unaccompanied minors out of Burma in search of safety and better opportunities for their future. Neither boy said they felt safe in Malaysia. In Penang, where they are both currently living, the Rohingya community is constantly under threat of arrest by immigration authorities.
Jamil (right) is thirteen. He arrived in Malaysia just three months ago. His parents sent him to Malaysia to escape being taken by the Burmese army for forced labor. He travelled from his home in Northern Rakhine State to Bangladesh, where he waited twenty days to catch a boat to Thailand. He spent two weeks at sea on the boat. When he arrived in Thailand he was arrested and taken to the Burmese border where he was picked up by agents who agreed to take him to the Thai-Malaysia border.
