Refugee Camp

NIAMEY, Niger — The United Nations refugee agency said that they are working to contain a cholera outbreak in Niger in a refugee camp for people fleeing the conflict in Mali. Melissa Fleming, the chief spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said in a statement on Tuesday that a total of seven people have died from cholera in recent weeks. They include two refugees who died in the Mangaize camp, currently housing 15,000 refugees in the Tillaberi region of Niger, located close to the Malian...

NIAMEY, Niger — The United Nations refugee agency said that they are working to contain a cholera outbreak in Niger in a refugee camp for people fleeing the conflict in Mali. Melissa Fleming, the chief spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said in a statement on Tuesday that a total of seven people have died from cholera in recent weeks. They include two refugees who died in the Mangaize camp, currently housing 15,000 refugees in the Tillaberi region of Niger, located close to the Malian...

JERUSALEM — A prominent Israeli actor and director who mentored young Palestinians at a youth theater that he founded in the West Bank town of Jenin was fatally shot Monday in the community's refugee camp. Juliano Mer Khamis, 52, born to a Jewish mother and a Christian Arab father, personified the complexities of the conflict dividing his country. He served in Israel's army as a paratrooper and portrayed Israeli Jews in film and on stage, but he cast his lot with the Palestinians.

PARACHINAR, Pakistan — A new offensive by the Pakistani military against militants in a northwestern tribal area has displaced thousands of people in the past week, an official said Wednesday. For years, Pakistan has been battling militant groups such as the Taliban in the tribal regions bordering Afghanistan. Civilians are often caught in the middle of the fighting, and hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced over the years of conflict. About a week ago, the military...

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, May 21 -- The International Committee of the Red Cross said Thursday that its workers have been barred from the country's largest refugee camp and cannot distribute aid to or monitor the well-being of some 130,000 displaced residents. The outspoken criticism by the normally discreet aid organization came a day after the United Nations pressed Sri Lanka's government to allow unfettered access to the war zone in the country's north. Aid groups must be able to evacuate any civilians still trapped in the north after...

Jordan is urging the Obama administration to intensify efforts to find a political settlement to the Syrian conflict, warning that its northern neighbor appears increasingly headed toward either anarchy or a breakup that could imperil the region for decades to come. Jordan's monarch, King Abdullah II , presented a blunt assessment of the two-year-old conflict during meetings this week with congressional leaders and White House officials, citing evidence that a long-feared splintering of Syria...

In the summer of 2000, Lopez Lomong was 15. Nine of those years he'd spent in a refugee camp in Kenya. He had never seen a television and had no idea what the Olympics were. But when several of his friends walked five miles to watch the Games on a grainy black-and-white set powered by a car battery, he went along. The highlight was the 400-meter dash, and the winner was the great American sprinter Michael Johnson. Lomong recalls the walk home: "In my...

NAIROBI — Renewed cross-border clashes between Sudan and the new nation of South Sudan are raising fears of a worsening humanitarian crisis, with some officials warning that the violence is reminiscent of the conflict in Darfur. Hundreds of people have fled Sudan in recent days, heading to camps in South Sudan and western Ethi­o­pia where tens of thousands have sought refuge since the crisis began last year, U.N. officials say. "The refugees are crossing into South Sudan ...

MAE LA REFUGEE CAMP, Thailand — Since the day she was born, 20-year-old Naw Lawnadoo has known almost nothing of the world beyond the fence and guard posts that hem her in with 45,000 others — ethnic minorities from Myanmar and those like her who were born and raised in the Mae La refugee camp in neighboring Thailand. School, family, friends, shopping and churchgoing — many of the refugees are Christian — have all been confined to a valley of densely packed...

Refugee Saharawi children join some of the 450 runners from 26 countries taking part in the Sahara Marathon at the Laayoune refugee camp in Western Sahara yesterday. The race was organized to celebrate the 33rd anniversary of Western Sahara's declaration of independence from Morocco, which still controls two-thirds of the territory. SOURCE: Associated Press

MAE LA REFUGEE CAMP, Thailand — Since the day she was born, 20-year-old Naw Lawnadoo has known almost nothing of the world beyond the fence and guard posts that hem her in with 45,000 others — ethnic minorities from Myanmar and those like her who were born and raised in the Mae La refugee camp in neighboring Thailand. School, family, friends, shopping and churchgoing — many of the refugees are Christian — have all been confined to a valley of densely packed bamboo-and-thatch huts huddled...

Jordan is urging the Obama administration to intensify efforts to find a political settlement to the Syrian conflict, warning that its northern neighbor appears increasingly headed toward either anarchy or a breakup that could imperil the region for decades to come. Jordan's monarch, King Abdullah II , presented a blunt assessment of the two-year-old conflict during meetings this week with congressional leaders and White House officials, citing evidence that a long-feared splintering of...

KILIS, TURKEY — Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have fled their country in the past six months, but millions remain in war-worn communities where food, clean water and heating fuel have become scarce. Accounts from refugees who have arrived recently in southern Turkey are painting an increasingly dismal scene of horrors left behind, while some Syrians still inside the country say they believe it is too late for them to leave. "We have to stay home and protect ourselves and be quiet until this crisis...

MAFRAQ, Jordan — Encouraged by what they see as fatal setbacks to the Syrian regime, several thousand of an estimated 250,000 Syrian exiles in Jordan have left in recent weeks to join the rebellion in their homeland. The exodus has emptied hundreds of the safe houses, apartments and refu­gee tents that have housed Syrians in Mafraq and other northern Jordanian cities, according to Syrian activists and Jordanian officials. Jordanian security officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because...

ANTAKYA, Turkey — Syria's vice president called Sunday for a negotiated end to the war that has raged for almost two years, saying neither the regime nor the rebels battling it can win on the ground. Farouk Al-Sharaa, in an interview to be published Monday in the Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar, suggested that keeping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in power is not necessarily a prerequisite for ending the war. "We must be in the position of defending Syria's existence," he added.

BEIRUT — Syrian fighter jets on Monday strafed a rebel-held area near the Turkish border that is home to thousands of internally displaced refugees, in what appeared to be a warning shot as NATO prepares to deploy surface-to-air missiles along the frontier. Missiles struck the town of Atmeh, just a couple of miles from the border, where a makeshift refugee camp in the surrounding hills harbors thousands of Syrians who fled their homes amid the grinding 20-month-old conflict . ...

The U.S. government is asking Germany for the travel documents needed to deport suspected World War II Nazi guard John Demjanjuk, 88. The suburban Cleveland man, accused of being a notorious guard at the Treblinka concentration camp in occupied Poland, has been charged in Germany with 29,000 counts of accessory to murder. Germany is handling the case because Demjanjuk spent time at a refugee camp in the area after the war. SOURCE: Associated Press

ANTAKYA, Turkey — Syria's vice president called Sunday for a negotiated end to the war that has raged for almost two years, saying neither the regime nor the rebels battling it can win on the ground. Farouk Al-Sharaa, in an interview to be published Monday in the Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar, suggested that keeping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in power is not necessarily a prerequisite for ending the war. "We must be in the position of defending Syria's existence," he added.

Inside a temporary metal shelter in a dense refugee camp, Abdelwahed, a mason and father of seven, sat in contemplative silence for nearly a week after his shell-shocked family arrived here in June. His children's legs hurt from the three-day hike into Turkey across the mountainous border from war-torn Syria. It was the lost look in their eyes that hurt him. Then, the weathered, thin 50-year-old had something of an epiphany. "I had no answer when they asked when we would go home.

In the summer of 2000, Lopez Lomong was 15. Nine of those years he'd spent in a refugee camp in Kenya. He had never seen a television and had no idea what the Olympics were. But when several of his friends walked five miles to watch the Games on a grainy black-and-white set powered by a car battery, he went along. The highlight was the 400-meter dash, and the winner was the great American sprinter Michael Johnson. Lomong recalls the walk home: "In my...