Dr. Rivah and her colleagues at Al-Quds Primary Health Care Center (PHCC) in West Mosul, Iraq have their hands full trying to keep two-year-old Mohammed still long enough to administer a polio vaccine. Eventually, they calm him enough to give him two vaccines in a row. By the time Mohammed realizes what has happened and the tears start… Read more →←
Topic: Children in emergencies
100 unopened texts. I turned to my friend who was reading the conversation, and that’s when I realized something wasn’t right. I slammed my laptop shut and asked what was going on while simultaneously reading through the missed messages. There were texts asking us to send Jaime Guttenberg’s number to anyone we knew in the… Read more →←
Civil war Sieges Bombings Casualties Refugees I had heard these terms in history class, abstract concepts I hadn’t paid much attention to. Seven years ago, at the age of eleven, they became my reality. 2011 I was sitting in English class when the school’s supervisor suddenly interrupted the session. He told me I wouldn’t be… Read more →←
Bebo’s life was cut short by war, but her voice will continue to be heard In the dark month of January 2018, intensifying fighting in Syria reportedly killed 59 children. In early February, dozens of children have reportedly been killed and many more injured by extreme and intensifying violence in several parts of Syria – and the… Read more →←
I have been living in the Netherlands for a little over two years now. Because I had to flee from Syria, I regularly get questions like: “How is the situation in Syria?”, “What do you think of the Netherlands?”, or “What are the differences between the two countries?” But every time I try to answer, more… Read more →←
“That child could have been dead by morning,” UNICEF Health Officer Christopher Otti Ajumara tells me. “If we hadn’t come here today, he could have died.” We are in Ajuong Thok in northern South Sudan, having just visited the home of Lina, 20, a mother of three. Her nine month old son, Mapir, became ill with malaria five days… Read more →←
Half a million people. In one month. It’s the world’s fastest developing refugee emergency and children are at the heart of it – 60 per cent of the 519,000 Rohingya refugees now in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, are children. But beyond the astonishing numbers are heartbreaking individual children’s stories. Of loss, suffering,… Read more →←
“We all want to go to school,” 11-year old Fatima* tells me, talking on behalf of all eight girls in the wooden hut. After listening to the horror of their stories, it’s not an answer I necessarily expected. I’m in a displaced persons camp, on the outskirts of Maiduguri town, Borno’s state capital, in northeast Nigeria. A… Read more →←
What’s the situation? A humanitarian crisis of near biblical proportions. Since 25 August, 515,000 Rohingya have crossed from Myanmar to Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh. They tell stories of villages being burned, family members being executed, children killed, women raped. It’s truly a children’s emergency. A staggering 60% of new… Read more →←
“Mommy, don’t cry,” says four-year-old Adriana Joseph, with tears welling in her eyes, as the overflowing river rushes dangerously under their feet and into their house. “The hurricane will calm down,” she adds trying to comfort her mum. But her mother, Abigail Walsh, broke down in tears. It was 8pm and Hurricane Maria had… Read more →←
