#refugees

#refugees

What does it mean to put your life on hold when war forces you to leave home? As the war in Ukraine enters its fifth year, people share how conflict has reshaped their lives, revealing feelings of longing, displacement and futures put on hold. From separation from home and loved ones, to the quiet emotional toll of waiting, each voice reflects a different facet of living with a war seemingly without end.

"They told me they just needed to verify the fingerprints for our oldest son, but he would not be detained," he said. The family asked to use only their initials for fear of retaliation from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. J.J. and his wife, A., didn't understand why one child's fingerprints would need checking, but they opened the door. And then they watched as their 20-year-old son was, in fact, arrested and driven away in a black SUV.

Selina Hales has a thing about pineapples. She is talking in a quiet office, set aside from the bustle of Refuweegee, the charity she founded 10 years ago, and the walls are festooned with tissue paper cutouts of the fruit, which is an international symbol of hospitality. Refuweegee its name a combination of the words refugee and Weegee, local slang for Glaswegian has expanded exponentially over the decade into an operation that supports hundreds of asylum seekers and refugees in the city every day.

Former Iraqi President Barham Salih is on course to become the next head of the United Nations refugee agency after Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recommended him for the job. A signed letter from Guterres, dated Thursday and addressed to Atsuyuki Oike, Japan's top diplomat in Geneva and chair of UNHCR's executive committee, that was seen by news agencies, confirmed the appointment pending formal approval.

It was when I met St Mungo's that I received the support I needed. I have now accessed both my private and state pension, received legal support in resolving the issues relating to my previous home and am waiting to move into my next property.

Nauru may seek to return refugees from the NZYQ cohort to their home countries, the Nauruan president has said, in an interview officially translated into English for the first time, and which the Australian government sought to keep hidden. David Adeang's interview erroneously claimed those being sent to Nauru were not refugees and said Nauru may seek to return them to their countries of origin where possible.

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

We are more than a national team, we represent a story of pain but also hope, Ihab Abu Jazar said, and we are not alone. At 8.26pm on Saturday the Palestine coach, whose father was killed in the Israel-Gaza war and whose siblings now live in tents in Khan Younis, emerged from the tunnel and took his place by the bench at San Mames, Bilbao.

Residents living in the refugee and asylum centre describe what the past week has been like behind a garda cordon. Protests outside the Citywest Hotel are not unusual. For more than a month before last week's unrest, local residents had demonstrated two or three times a week against the State's purchase of the hotel. "But they just walked around near the entrance with a loudspeaker and placards, shouting slogans. We had got used to that," said Ukrainian resident Svitlana (not her real name; she and the other residents quoted asked for anonymity).

Islam's* life was changed forever by an air strike in November 2023. The young woman from el-Geneina, Sudan, had been preparing for her exams when a strike landed directly on her family's home. Now, sitting in one of the countless straw structures in a sprawling refugee camp in Adre just over the border in eastern Chad, Islam, 22, sobs as she recalls what happened to her.

Ireland feels so distinctly itself, so fiercely shaped by its people, that it seems impossible to imagine it as anything but independent

In northern Uganda, the unfolding consequences of US funding cuts to international humanitarian aid are palpable. Thousands of families have been living in refugee camps along the border with South Sudan for almost a decade, and newcomers are reported every day as the never-ending conflict within the country intensifies. Uganda has long been a crossroads of migration, shaped by historical and contemporary population movements. Today, it hosts over 1.9 million refugees and asylum seekers one of the largest refugee populations in the world.

A former Afghan interpreter exposed in a catastrophic Ministry of Defence (MoD) data breach has had his offer of relocation to the UK revoked despite waiting for two years in Pakistan.