Langlesing | Flyktninghjelpen

Langlesing

Fuel and water crisis June 2020

Drivstoffkrise truer liv

Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) have been working around the clock to ensure that refugees and displaced children and youth can exercise their right to quality, relevant education.
Mohammad, 13, is one of these children. He is originally from Hama in Syria but fled to Lebanon together with his family six years ago. Now he lives with his parents, three sisters and three brothers in a small apartment outside Tripoli, North Lebanon.
“Although it has been six years since we arrived here, I still wish we can go back every single day. We could play football as much as we wanted in front of our home and we had a huge yard where no one bothered us,” says Mohammad. “In Lebanon we can never finish a football game, the neighbours always get annoyed and ask us to go back home. Now the situation is worse, we can’t do anything.”
Refugee children are bearing the blunt
When the activities stopped due to the Covid-19 outbreak Mohammad and his brothers were very upset. Going to the NRC learning centre, meeting their friends, and learning was part of their daily routines. “It’s not easy to stay at home, I feel down but there is nothing we can do,” says Mohammad with hesitation.
The Corona crisis has led to closed schools and disrupted the education to more than 1.5 billion learners. Refugees and displaced children and youth are bearing the blunt. Children and young people in displacement have often missed out on years of education already, due to war and conflict, and without any help, school closures due to Covid-19 will make them fall behind even further.
“To meet the needs of Mohammad and 1,200 other children enrolled at NRC learning centres in Lebanon we are now implementing remote learning modalities, including via communication platforms such as WhatsApp, combined with follow-up phone calls to provide guidance and support and to safely refer people to other specialised organisations,” says Rayan El Baf, one of NRC’s child protection technical officers in North Lebanon.
Due to the lockdown and fear of spreading the virus our colleagues are not able to visits the children and their parents. It is Mohammad’s mother, Fatima, that has sent us the photos, and it is our colleagues in Lebanon that have interviewed Mohammed and his mother.
“The remote learning has benefited my children a lot. Instead of leaving them behind during this period, NRC’s remote learning methods show us that NRC continues to care about the education of our children and appreciate their efforts to learn. It helps them connect with their inner selves, it gives them courage and strength to know their own worth,” says Fatima, Mohammad’s mother.
Nationwide lockdown

On the 15th of March, Lebanon declared a state of general mobilization in an attempt to control the spread of the coronavirus. With the nationwide lockdown, the basic survival and protection of the most vulnerable communities in Lebanon has become a critical issue. However, despite the challenges and to minimize the risk of exposure to beneficiaries and its frontline staff, NRC Lebanon continues its essential service delivery by only implementing critical lifesaving activities on-site and has tailored other programme interventions through different modalities to specifically support the national Covid-19 response.

Stay and deliver
“Although our learning centres were closed due to the Covid-19 situation, we never stopped delivering educational messages to the children,” says Rayan El Baf. “We regularly contacted them and their parents over the phone to check on their wellbeing, raise awareness on the situation and share learning materials,” she says.
Since the coronavirus lockdown, Mohammad spends most of his time at home. He either focuses on the NRC learning materials, revises the lessons, or plays with his siblings. He also sometimes helps his father at work, who sells coffee for a living.

Caring teachers

“My teacher Rouwayda always supports us to solve the exercise when we need help. She is caring and fair. Our teachers make us feel at ease and insist that we understand the lessons before leaving the classroom,” says Mohammad.

Mohammad’s mother is grateful for the support NRC gives her children. “They are always so happy when talking to the staff and are able to express themselves easily.”

“The remote teaching allows my children to revise and remember the information they received in the classes and bring some variety to the daily routine during the coronavirus lockdown. This is not only helping them to learn but also to feel more positive about the situation,” Fatima says. “The remote learning and support given over the regular calls also helps me to communicate better with my children”, she concludes.

New ways and solutions

“Though adopting remote learning modalities, we have been able to develop a positive bond between us and the parents are becoming more involved in their children’s education. Luckily, we have not faced any difficult issues with the remote learning, and we are always trying to find new ways and solutions to deal with any challenges that might arise. However, the hardest challenge is perhaps that we cannot answer the children when they ask us when they can come back to our centres to see us and their friends,” Rayan concludes.

“The learning centre was a place where I felt safe. I miss both my friends and the teachers. But most of all I would like to return to Syria,” Mohammad says.
Photo: Private

Mobiltelefonen ble redningen

Photo: Ingrid Prestetun/NRC

Flyktninghjelpen

Vi hjalp mer enn ni millioner mennesker på flukt i 2019

“Nothing is better than seeing my city clean.” Hisham Abdullah has been a cleaner for more than ten years, in his home city of Mocha. “I work every day from early in the morning until noon,” he says.

He is grateful for his job with the local council, which is the only source of income for his family of seven. But it is not an easy job, as there is a lot of physical effort needed to sweep the streets and heft heavy rubbish bags. And at times it is made harder by the attitudes of Hisham’s fellow residents.

“Sometimes we can face insulting remarks from people,” he admits.
Perhaps for this reason, Hisham has always appreciated those who have been supportive of his work, helping to clean outside their houses and shops. “When the community joins us in a cleaning campaign,” he explains, “it encourages us to work harder.”

But recently, Hisham has been aware of a shift in attitudes. Because on 10 April 2020, Yemen confirmed its first case of the novel coronavirus: Covid-19.

Before the conflict, Mocha was a small coastal city, known for its fishing—and also long ago as a major coffee port, after which the café mocha is named. But in the last three years it has become a destination for thousands of displaced families seeking safety from the conflict. This influx of people has meant an increased need for cleaning teams like Hisham’s.

“We clean all camps in the city and around it,” Hisham explains. “The displaced people appreciate our work, to be honest. Most of them collect their rubbish in plastic bags and put them in the in front of their tents.”

Not everyone was so supportive. But since Covid-19 has hit Yemen, people are taking cleaning more seriously. Even those who had previously been uncooperative now see hygiene as a priority.

“Everyone started to respect us and help us in cleaning their neighbourhoods,” Hisham says.

In the wake of the first confirmed case, Hisham’s team is one of many being supported by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) to step up their efforts to keep local markets and camps clean. This is part of a range of new measures NRC has rolled out to help combat the virus.

“Cleaning is not a new thing for us, we have been doing it for years,” Hisham says. “But the NRC training showed us how to work safely so we won’t be affected by the coronavirus or help spread it.”

Hisham was particularly glad of the protective equipment that came with the training. “NRC provided us with gloves, face masks and cleaning tools.”

“The happiest day for me,” Hisham says, “is when I see that Mocha is clean, and people are helpful and aware about the importance of cleaning.”

Photo: Zaid Al-Haimi/NRC

Kjemper for å holde gatene rene og fri for korona

Flyktningregnskapet

Korona og konflikt: en dødelig miks

Flyktningregnskapet

79,5 millioner på flukt i koronaens tid

Women from displaced families and host communities graduated from hairdressing and tailoring training in Ethiopia.

Neglisjerte kriser

Tre grunner til å beholde håpet

5 ting du bør vite om Kameruns tre kriser

Flyktningregnskapet

Verdens mest neglisjerte flyktningkriser i 2019

Date: 10 January 2020
Location: Barsalogho - Center North of Burkina Faso
Photo: Tom Peyre-Costa/NRC

Neglisjerte fluktkriser

Ti ting som rammer mennesker og samfunn når kriser neglisjeres

Duatso Ndoho poses for a photo inside of her house which is yet to be completed. The woman is from Ituri province on the heart of an intercommunal conflict that has triggered massive displacement since last year.

The final phase of the construction of her house involves finishing the roofing.

Photo: Itunu Kuku/NRC

Neglisjerte fluktkriser

Hva er en «neglisjert krise»?

Gjenoppbygger sykehus på fire uker

On the 10 April, the same day the first Covid-19 case in Yemen was confirmed, Muhsen Ahmed Mahyoub was fleeing his home.

Muhsen’s home village of Hareeb was a small and a peaceful one, not far from Sana’a city. On the farm he had inherited from his father, Muhsen kept goats and sheep, and planted corn, barley and wheat. He held on to this quiet life through five years of escalating violence. Even when a landmine took both his legs in 2016, Muhsen still steadfastly continued farming, thanks to the help of his children. The farm was his life, and his only source of income. How would his family eat, if they left?

But on 10 April, one day after a unilateral ceasefire was announced, the war finally forced him to flee.

First came the gunfire in the distance. When it grew closer, Muhsen called his wife and children together, and quickly rounded up the goats and sheep. Around him, other families were doing the same.

Muhsen hired a small pickup, loading his animals in the back, and struck out for the desert near Marib city. Here, a barren stretch of sandy land has in the last four months become home to 500 families from around Marib and Nihm.

It is known as Al-Swaidah camp, though there is nothing to mark it as such: no running water, no toilets, no electricity. It is just there.

Muhsen’s family assembled a tent for themselves from iron pipes and plastic sheets. But despite these conditions, Muhsen is just glad to be safe. “We felt we were the luckiest in the world when we arrived.”

Some families still have their goats and sheep with them. Muhsen has sold his animals to buy food and other basic items. “In my village, I used to eat from my farm and sell the rest. But here we are dependent on organizations to help,” he says. “It is true that we can get some food from WFP, but it isn’t enough.”

Muhsen is thankful to those organizations which have started to provide mattresses, water and food. But there is so much they still need, including latrines and proper shelter. Storms and floods have damaged several tents in the last few months.

“Before the war, I used to wake up before dawn and walk to the fields and work until ten. Then I would walk to the market to buy some things, and return to have my lunch with family. We sat together in the afternoon to chew Qat and talk—usually about farming. Nowadays, we are thinking all the time how to get food, how to get water and how long we can stay here.”

Muhsen has heard about Covid-19 but doesn’t consider it a threat for displaced people, as they have other, more pressing, worries. None of the displaced people in the camp have been taking any measures against Covid-19.

He has not heard of the ceasefire declaration. He has seen the families still arriving from surrounding areas, fleeing the ongoing fighting. And so far, the news from his hometown is that it has not stopped. “The battles are still ongoing, so we can’t return.”

Photo: Hassan Al-Homaidi/NRC

Tvunget på flukt under “korona-våpenhvile”

Mohamed spiste gress for å overleve

NRC education team takes precautionary measures against COVID-19 into consideration during distribution of High Energy Biscuits to displaced families in Lahj governorate.

The education team used to distribute these biscuits to children in schools as replacement for the food children would have been receiving in schools but nowadays the schools are closed so our team is distributing it to displaced families.

Photo: Abdulfatah Al Jaboly/NRC

Jemens kamp mot koronaviruset

Um Ibrahim – Displaced with six children

“My main issue now is my identity card and those of my children – they’re old. I cannot cross any checkpoint unless I renew identity cards. As my husband is missing, I cannot get new ID cards without his presence or having the original copy of his ID,” Says Um Ibrahim, 44, from Hawija District in Kirkuk Governorate.

Um Ibrahim fled with her six children to a displacement camp during the fight against IS. Her husband who was a farmer and the owner of the land and their house has gone missing. During the fight against the Islamic State group to retake Hawija, he decided to remain on the farm and protect the land and livestock. Later Um Ibrahim received information from the people in the village that her husband had been taken by some militias.

“I am afraid if I go back to our home, whoever took my husband might take my children as well or harm them,” she says.

“My family cannot do anything to help me. They are in the camp just like me. We all are from the same village and none of us can return back to our areas of origin. We are only depending on NGOs for support. The only thing that might help us start our lives again is to renew our IDs and get some compensation to start a small project and get an income to be able to live.”

Photo: Helen Baker/NRC

Ødelagte hjem: irakiske kvinner har lidd store tap

Farhiyo Iishaar Omar fears her daughter was attacked by lions.
Photo: Ingrid Prestetun/NRC

Frykter at datteren er tatt av løver

Rafsanjan Settlement is situated about 15 kilometres outside of Kerman city in southern Iran. It hosts 5,500 Afghan refugees, making it the largest refugee settlement in the country. Picture: Hamid Sadeghi/NRC

Drømmer satt på vent i Iran

Næringslivet mobiliserer til dugnad

Korona-konvoien

In September 2019, Mariam Farah Hussein, her husband and seven children fled Mogadishu for Bosaso, on Somalia's northern coastline. The family left their home during shelling on their neighbourhood that subsequently hit and destroyed their home completely.

“I lived in constant fear. There were a lot of explosions every day. People were killed every day, murdered – anything could happen. Because of this fear we decided to flee.”

“We have seen a lot of problems. When I left my home, it was hit by bombs. I suffered when I was travelling. After I arrived here, I forgot all my problems and fears. I feel safe.”

Photo: Ingrid Prestetun/NRC

Flyktet fra en av verdens farligste byer

The humanitarian situation in the South West State of Somalia is deteriorating, with thousands of displaced people arriving in Baidoa and other towns every month. They flee from rural areas due to conflict and drought which has destroyed harvests for three consecutive seasons. The ongoing threat of armed conflict is limiting the capacity of humanitarian organisations to deliver assistance outside of urban areas, forcing people who are severely affected to relocate to areas wherever support is available.

Stemmer fra mennesker på flukt

Faduma Abdinor Mohamed, 39, was pregnant with her youngest child when both her father and husband were killed during armed attacks.

The compounding impact of drought left Faduma unable to feed and water her livestock, leaving her struggling to feed her children. When one of her sons became seriously ill, she sold her four surviving goats to pay for his medicine. She does not own any land but earned some money by working on other people’s farms. When the drought deteriorated, it was not possible to find any more work.

Eventually, the combined pressure of conflict and drought forced Faduma to move to Baidoa, an urban centre with greater access to humanitarian assistance.

“Children adapt to the place where they grow up and spend time. I want my children to learn, to help their parents and build a future … and get an education that can give them opportunities everywhere. That is why I brought them here.”

With help from her brother, who lives in Mogadishu, Faduma is able to send her four oldest children to school, but she continues to struggling to provide enough for them enough to eat.

“Last night we got something to eat from others. My children didn’t eat anything this morning. I had nothing to cook.”

Photo: Ingrid Prestetun/NRC

– Jeg flyktet for å redde barna mine

Slik hjelper vi

More than 1,000 displaced families lost their shelters as a result of the floods in Hajjah’s Abs district on 17 April 2020

Photo: Anwar Abdu/NRC

Ingen steder å søke ly

Mohammed Abdulwahab, 33, belongs to a family with a long tradition of farming. He inherited this job from his father. He is a father of four children and farming is the main source of income for the family.

“When the war broke out, most residents fled their houses but we didn’t flee because we have livestock and we didn’t have anywhere else to go.,” Mohammed says.

“I remained in the house. But I had to leave the house every two to three days to bring food for the family and during that time we were unable to plant our land.”

Mohammed states that half of his farm became barren by the time fighting in his area stopped and farmers lost their source of income.

“The prices of basic goods such as food increased and since the farmers had lost their income they couldn’t afford to buy basic goods to survive. “We experienced real suffering,” he adds. “We were struggling until NRC intervened and helped us with seeds, farming tools, water tanks and money to pay for the cost of ploughing.”

Mohammed confirms that NRC’s support really helped the farmers and residents as the prices of vegetables decreased by half with more vegetables becoming available.

“Farmers got the seeds for free, so all of them planted their land and the yields were a lot so the prices decreased by half.”

Mohammed believes NRC came at the right time for his family and hopes more support will be available in the coming months, “I thank NRC for helping us to return to our land and hope they can continue to support us in the coming year.”

Photo: Nasser Abdulkareem/NRC

Dyrker jorda i skyggen av krigen

10 måter koronaviruset truer de mest sårbare

A thoughtful Hamayadi looks on after sharing his story with us in Berberati, Central African Republic.

Den sentralafrikanske republikk

– Det bodde en familie i huset mitt

Dugnaden må ikke stoppe ved våre landegrenser

The night Boko Haram attacked Halima’s village, her husband disappeared in the chaos and she had to flee alone with her four young children. Five years have passed and she has still not heard from him. She fears he was killed that night.

Halima, 32, is not the only one that has been forced to flee her home because of attacks from armed groups in the border areas between Cameroon and Nigeria. The Boko Haram conflict in Nigeria has led to significant protracted displacements in Cameroon’s Far North region, ranking Cameroon as the second most affected country (after Nigeria) in the Lake Chad Basin region. 64% of all humanitarian needs in the country, affecting approximately 2.1 million people, are concentrated in the Far North region. This includes 227,581 internally displaced persons (IDPs), 92,238 returnees (former IDPs), 96,727 Nigerian refugees, 406,700 host community members and more than one million other vulnerable people (Humanitarian Response Plan - HRP 2018). As more and more attacks are now also happening inside of Cameroon, it is leading to more insecurity and secondary displacements. For aid agencies, access is also increasingly difficult.

“After I fled my home, we stayed in Kourgui for two months hoping that life would be better there, but it was not easy at all, so I decided to come here to Mora".

Mora is a little bit further from the border and feels a bit safer. Halima now rents a small house in a compound with another family, trying to make a new life after having lost all she once owned. Back home she had a sewing machine that gave her a steady income. Without her machine or her husband’s help, she has struggled to make ends meet. Now, with the support from NRC, her situation has turned for the better.

Halima is part of a group of women that are selected for a fish farming project that NRC supports as part of our Food Security activities. A local entrepeneur, Boucar Adji, had set up a fish farming cooperative and NRC decided to provide financial support to this great initiative. The entrepreneur used the funds to expand the fish activities and intentionally hired displaced women to work with him at the cooperative. The women receive 15,000 francs every month from the cooperative for the work they do on the fish farm. Every morning for the past three months, Halima and the other members of the association meet to feed the fish and clean the premises.

In addition, NRC has provided financial assistance directly to the women to help them start up a small business. With the first of three cash instalments, Halima chose to buy peanuts that she now roasts and sells. The income from this and the work at the fish farm has made it possible for her to pay the school fee for two of her four children. It also generates a welcome addition of fish into their diet.

"If today my small family manages to eat fresh fish, it is thanks to the fish farming done by the association," Halima ends.

Photo: Ingebjørg Kårstad/NRC

Ringvirkninger: hvordan fiskeoppdrett forvandler liv

The protracted crisis in the Donbas region of Ukraine is well into its sixth year. The contact line continues to separate Government controlled area (GCA) and Non-Government controlled area (NGCA) of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. This separation isolates much of the population in GCA from important services and livelihood providers in urban centres in NGCA. Along the 427-kilometre contact line, there are five open exit-entry checkpoints (EECP) in Hnutove, Novotroitske, Marinka, Maiorsk and Stanytsia Luhanska, where internally displaced and conflict-affected people cross to visit relatives, buy food and other goods, receive social payments and check on their property.

Since the opening of these EECPs, the number of people crossing the contact line continues to grow. Every month, there are about 1,3 million people recorded crossing through all five of the EECPs. Long queues and correspondingly, long waiting times at checkpoints continue to be reported. During their journey to cross the contact line, very often people face difficult weather conditions and slow processing times. These civilians who cross the contact line have limited access to basic services such as drinking water, latrines, weather shelters, heating, and medical care.

Photo: Dmytro Tielushkin/The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)

Seks fakta etter seks år med krig

There are hand sanitizers at the main gate, and work with the committees distributing vouchers to people to ensure people sterilize their hands when they come to collect their vouchers and when they leave.

Photo: Nasser Abdulkareem/NRC

Frykter konsekvensene av koronaviruset

We use an illustration photo in order to protect “David’s” identity. The photo is from Brasil and was taken in August 2019. The man in the photo worked on a coffee farm in conditions analogous to slavery. Photo: Adriano Machado/Reuters/NTB Scanpix

Ansikt til ansikt med en slave

Fatoumata, 67 and her family moved several times to escape from armed attacks. Originally from Sigue-Raguin, she fled the first time to seek safety in Foubé. But the executions and threats continued and they had to flee from Foubé to Kaya.

"The armed men have chased us away from our homes and killed our loved ones. That’s why we fled and came here. We don’t have any food, we don’t have a roof over our head, we have nothing at all. We are asking for assistance." She said.

"We left yesterday and arrived here today. We haven’t eaten anything since the sun rose.

Just the day before yesterday, 6 people were caught and killed while they were on the road. After this, the attackers went to… I don’t remember where, but so many people have been killed.

We were all filled with fear so we immediately took to the road and by the grace of God we were able to escape. Our wish is to settle down in peace and receive some food or any other assistance. What we need the most is some assistance and a place where we can stay. All we are praying for now is to receive some assistance." Fatoumata added.

Date: 21 January 2020
Location: Kaya - Center North Burkina Faso
Photo: Tom Peyre-Costa/NRC

Portrettintervju

Med øye på verden – og Afrika sør for Sahara

Inside NRC camp management center in the outskirts of Kabul city, our staff provides masks to visitors from the camp and also guide them on prevention measures and train them how can they reduce any potential risk of infection to them and their family.

NRC Camp Management is working in 20 settlements consist of 4000 households and 35000 individuals, out of 52 informal settlements in Kabul. Photo: Enayatullah Azad / NRC

Internt fordrevne i Kabul er utsatt

Al-Ezi Majed, 6, is washing his hands and face from the only water point in Souk Al-Lail camp in Amran city where more than fifty families live.

Photo: Nasser Abdulkareem/NRC

Vi bekjemper koronaviruset på tre måter