Langlesing | Flyktninghjelpen

Langlesing

Cash assistance offers hope to Gazans in distress

Kontantstøtte gir håp til nødstilte innbyggere i Gaza

Åtte grunner til at mennesker dør på Middelhavet

NORCAP Head office staff, Elise Luhr Dietrichson, Helen Kape Peters and Eirin Ulleberg visiting a refugee camp in northern Uganda, 2018. (Photo: Emile Ntempera/NORCAP)

75 år for mennesker på flukt

– Det er vondt å se et barn på fem år veie like mye som en to-åring

75 år for mennesker på flukt

Hverdagsheltene på bakken

Rekordmange fikk hjelp

Vi hjalp nær 12 millioner mennesker i 2020

NRC Secretary General Jan Egeland in Horaira village, Wadi Barada, Syria.
Photo: Tareq Mnadili/NRC

75 år for mennesker på flukt

– Vi ønsker å gjøre en virkelig forskjell

75 år for mennesker på flukt

Alfredo Zamudio

Flyktet fra Chile

Alfredo ble alene som 12-åring

Dette er flyktningene som deltar i den digitale økonomien

I ly fra ørkenvindene

Seks år med ødeleggelser

Abdullah Hasan Al-Shara’ai, aged 65, points out the extensive damage to his home in Taiz city, which he used to partially rent out for an income.

When the fighting reached his neighborhood in Taiz city, Abdullah took his family and fled the area, leaving everything behind. “We didn’t think about anything but how to flee. Our souls are the most valuable thing. Everything else can be fixed.”

He took shelter in an empty hotel, alongside other displaced people. When the battles eased somewhat, he returned to check on his home, but found it had been badly damaged. He gathered the remnants of the shells that had struck his building and kept them.

“The home was damaged and everything inside it was destroyed. I lost everything I have and now I live inside two rooms in a hotel,” he says. Abdullah's son broke his leg fleeing gunshots, and has not walked since.

Abdullah is one of 100 families in Taiz city who have received financial assistance to cover his shelter costs, from the Norwegian Refugee Council within funding from the German government. Abdullah remembers what it was like to be a landlord with his own tenants. He says he often allowed his tenants to miss or reduce rental payments when they were in trouble. “I wasn’t tough on anyone. Some used to pay YR13,000 and others YR15,000 and sometimes nothing.”

Back then, Abdullah says, “I was satisfied with my income. If you are satisfied with what Allah gives you, you will be the richest one."

Photo: Khalid Al-Banna/NRC

På innsiden av en beleiret by

Gjenoppbygger liv og gjenoppretter håpet i Syria

Ten-year-old Osama has not known any other life than being a refugee. He was born two months after his family fled to Za’atari camp in Jordan in 2012.

“When the situation in Syria deteriorated I had no choice than to leave to get my family to safety,” says Osama’s father, Mohammad, 49. “I through we would return after two months but did I never imagined 10 years would pass by and we would still be refugees.”

Osama only knows Syria through the story of his parents. In fact, he has never even met any of his relatives living in Syria. “I show him the videos they send on WhatsApp to me and I tell him who everyone is,” says Mohammed.

“My dad tells me about his childhood in Syria, what our house was like and about my grandfather and that he was a very good man. He always tried to help people and I wish I had met him before he died,” says Osama. “I like to look at pictures of him and see the farm where my dad grew up.”

“My son, Osama, can’t even dream of the future because he has lived in limbo his entire life. I encourage him to study and do sports and take any training opportunity he can get but I really don’t know what type of future he will face if we remain refugees,” Mohammad concludes.

Photo: Daniel Wheeler/NRC

10 år med krig i Syria

Født i en flyktningleir

Stemmer fra Syria: ti års lidelse

Å bli mor i en krigssone

Et tiår med krig

Fra forsideoppslag til glemt krise

Sayirah, 12, and her little brother in Hiwadwal IDP settlement
in Kabul. Children in this settlement are among the most vulnerable displaced population in the country. The children here can't read and write but can easily get the COVID-19 message from SalamForSafety posters. Photo: Enayatullah Azad / NRC

Ett år etter: Slik gir vi nødhjelp i en pandemi

8 ting vi gjør for å beskytte jenter og kvinner på flukt

Arwad er på flukt i koronaens tid

Jan Egeland visiting a children’s malnutrition hospital in Hajjah, northern Yemen. He met with a 9-year-old girl who is unable to walk because of malnutrition. Her mother told Egeland they cannot afford to eat and their food rations were cut by half last year.

Seks år med krig

10 fakta om den dødelige krisen i Jemen

Slik når vi frem med nødhjelp der krigen raser

Anglo Woku never imagined he would be considered a refugee in Sudan in his twilight years. Especially since he left the Southern part of the country for a better life almost 50 years ago.
“I escaped in 1969, shortly after the civil war broke out. I ended up in Khartoum. I was working for the military. I was married, had a family and friends. Sudan gave me a good life,” he said.
The conflict between North and South raged on for 22 years until a peace agreement was brokered in 2005. Then in 2011, the people of the South voted for independence and South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation, was born.
This new dawn however caused all sorts of legal uncertainties for the South Sudanese living in Sudan, particularly in the years following independence.
“I lost my Sudanese identity,” Anglo, 78, explained: “I went from being a public servant to a refugee.”
In 2011 following the independence of South Sudan, Sudan passed laws that had a detrimental impact on the identity of people with Southern heritage.
They automatically lost their Sudanese nationality and were now considered South Sudanese. Even their children, despite being born and raised in Sudan, were given a new nationality. Many people had no intention of returning to South Sudan, a country, largely unknown to them and this created a legal dilemma on questions around their legal status.
Under the Four Freedoms agreement signed in 2012 between the government of South Sudan and Sudan, South Sudanese were to be granted freedom of movement, residence, economic activity and the right to acquire and dispose property. They were also awarded prima facie refugee status, however the legal status of those who lost their Sudanese identity following the cessation, but with no intention of returning, remains unclear.
Some however made the decision to leave for South Sudan both spontaneously or with the assistance of the UN through facilitated returns.
As part of the organised returns, those willing to repatriate were assembled at departure points. However, in 2013, conflict erupted in South Sudan and the operation was stalled leaving thousands of South Sudanese in limbo and stuck in departure points, to this day.
These departure points, now known as Open Areas, are home to over 31,000 South Sudanese living in nine Open Areas across Khartoum. Anglo is among those languishing in these areas with no rights or access to a decent standard of living.
While registration efforts continue, it is estimated that there are around 154,700 refugees living in nine Open Areas including Um Badda, Jabal Aulya and Sharq El Nile across Khartoum state. They make up approximately 55 per cent of the overall South Sudanese refugee population and are among the most vulnerable members of Sudanese society.
Life is tough in the Open Areas and thousands have limited access to food, water, healthcare or livelihoods.
“I found myself jobless and homeless with no rights, no identification and I have been here ever since,” Anglo revealed further.
Fondly known as ´the Sultan´, the name given to well-respected leaders in the community, Anglo went from the upper echelons of Sudanese society to being exiled to a dusty, sparce flat land called Nivasha on the edge of Khartoum’s city limits.
He and thousands more live an invisible existence here, virtually hidden from the rest of the Sudanese population who struggle on with life in a country buckled by years of oppression, debt, government corruption, international sanctions, recurrent drought-related famines and humanitarian chaos. Out of sight and out of mind seems to the policy for urban refugees in modern day Khartoum.
“I did not want to become a refugee. I worked hard as a citizen but this happened. My children have moved back to South Sudan, but my wife is here. My children have jobs and they are safe. We had planned to move back there but there is no way out now. I have no money and we are struck here.”
Like several others, Anglo is a trapped in an administrative quagmire that no organization or agency has the full funding, capacity or support to resolve.
The Commission for Refugees is the body mandated to manage refugee affairs in-country including registration and refugee status determination. It is funded by UNHCR, which maintains a supervisory role, is currently dealing with a backlog on registration. Access to documentation remains a key challenge for all unregistered refugees. Biometric registration is ongoing however it will take time before the backlog is cleared.
The winter sun is setting as we arrive at Nivasha settlement and paints a golden syrupy hue over the far out and forgotten community.
Terra cotta-coloured cuboid homes line the vicinity like blocks on a Tetris game. Curious heads peep out from glassless windows of makeshift shops, indicating some market infrastructure but nowhere near enough to serve the disadvantaged population.
Bells tinkle from under the throats of overburdened donkeys carrying the only available water to the residents. A teenage boy rides on top and raises his thumbs to smile as the camera flashes and lights up the expansive area that will soon be in plunged into darkness.
There is limited electric, running water, and food scarcity plays constantly on the minds of mothers desperate to feed their growing children.
“There is no food,” said 70-year-old grandmother Apuk.
“We are constantly hungry. I have never known hunger until I came to these settlements,” she said.
A handful of local agencies including WFP offer humanitarian assistance to the 11,000 people of the settlement but there are virtually no income-generating activities available to provide a sustainable away from a reliance on aid.
As a result, many residents venture into the nearest neighbourhoods or markets for daily work opportunities. Men find casual labour while the women find cleaning or housekeeping jobs.
“My daughter when she gets work, provides around 50 Sudanese pounds per day (less than a dollar). If we get money, we get a meal once a day. But if she finds no work, we have to search for food in the night to ensure the children get something to eat,” Apuk said.
“We often come home with nothing.”
Like many vulnerable communities around the world, the Covid-19 pandemic has had a crippling economic effect on people fiercely reliant on daily labour wages.
Restrictions and lockdowns forced the city to close and dried up the only work opportunities available to men and women living hand to mouth. The cash-dependent people of Nivasha are no different to the cash-dependents of Naples, Nairobi or New York. Pandemic poverty affects all.
With no adequate health or sanitation facilities around, Nivasha is a welcome host for coronavirus among other diseases. And if anyone is sick, there is no ambulance to take them to a hospital. The nearest hospital is miles away and the only way to travel is an expensive and unaffordable taxi or motorbike ride.
With the recent inflation rate, certain food commodities such as red meat, dairy products and fish are also expensive. Everything is expensive in economically-fragile Sudan.
As Anglo points out, people need more than subsidies to be able to afford to eat, they need opportunity.
“This land is good. It can be productive for food with the use of small backyard land, but the community does not have the support to start food production activities,” he explained.
“If they had their own vegetables, they could eat them and sell them. There are many women here that are farmers. They know what to do. They would like to start farms or shops.”
Apuk reveals that she grew up on a farm in South Sudan and remembers her young life well.
“We had a good life. We had food, plenty to eat. We were fishermen. I miss the taste of fish, I used to eat it every day,” she smiled.
“I feel safe in Sudan but I just want my children to eat. I want them to have some life. I am old but they are not. I have lived and worked in Sudan, but I would like my community to live better,” she said.
Anglo admits life is not what he expected it to turn out but finds comfort in the many friends he has found in the community. As he talks, several men of various ages gather around him in a brotherly circle. “He is a good man,” says George Allam Lolika-Khalil, the Sultan of another camp, “he cares for the community. He tries to make things right for us especially the children.”
Anglo believes that with the new democratic government, Sudan has the potential to grow but he would like to see the refugee community better served and no longer forgotten.
“If they don´t provide livelihood opportunities or training. We will just waste away. We are now known as refugees but many of us have lived here all our life and we just want to continue living without struggling. We just want to feel settled in the country we have always called home,” he said.

Photo: Ingebjørg Kårstad/NRC

Khartoums glemte flyktninger

After receiving training in construction and masonry, former child soldier Mark* constructs a latrine outside his grandmothers house in Kasai-Central, DRC.

*Name changed to protect identity

Photo: Itunu Kuku/NRC

En tidligere barnesoldats største kamp

Mohammed Damaj inside his home at Al-Alad camp for displaced people, which NRC built. Mohammed lost his right leg some years ago but has used carpentry skills he learned from an NRC training to improve his shelter and make it more like home.

Photo: Riona McCormack/NRC

– Vi er alle én familie nå

9 ting du bør vite om:

Nødhjelp der krigen raser

Lebanese and Syrian children, who were affected by the Beirut explosion, are participating in the Psychosocial support sessions implemented by the Norwegian Refugee Council to help them deal with their traumas.

Photo: Zaynab Mayladan/NRC

Slik lærer barna i Beirut å håndtere traumene

A child drinking water in Kharef camp, Yemen, thanks to a new solar-powered pump linked to a borehole.

Når vannet forsvinner

Som giver er du med på noe spesielt i Sudan

Lærer barn på flukt å lese og skrive midt i pandemien

9 grunner til at:

Karavaner med migranter forlater Honduras

Long lines of people are waiting outside the NRC office in Um Rakuba camp.

Most of the refugees waiting are young men, which makes up a majority of the ones who have fled Ethiopia. We were told stories of fear of recruitment to the militia, or of being killed if suspected to belong to TPLF.

Photo: Ingebjørg Kårstad/NRC

Menneskene som flykter fra Tigray i Etiopia

Da korona-alarmen gikk

Abdul-Aziz whispering on her mom ear

Bygger et nytt hjem i ruinene av det gamle

Øyeblikk av håp