Tag Archives: refugees

Maggie’s Story: A tiny Scottish charity doing great work in Arsal

Image

1
Burnt out camp in Arsal, Lebanon in August 2014. Picture courtesy of Maggie Tookey

Burnt out camp in Arsal, Lebanon (August 2014).  Picture courtesy of Maggie Tookey

Cut off from the rest of Lebanon and accessible by just one road is Arsal, the battle front with ISIS of which you’ve probably never heard.

Largely abandoned by the Lebanese state, the north eastern town on the border with Syria has had to absorb, at a low estimate, over 80,000 Syrian refugees into its population of just 35,000.

At the height of its security problems, when all other aid groups had pulled out over safety fears, it was a small, volunteer-run Scottish charity, Edinburgh Direct Aid (EDA) that was first on the scene.

Continue reading →

Helena’s Story: A Scot in Lesbos

Image

3

Boats off Lesbos

In the first 6 months of 2015, 137,000 people crossed the Mediterranean Sea into Europe. The vast majority, according to UNHCR, were “fleeing from war, conflict or persecution.”

A third of those men, women and children who made it across the sea into Italy or Greece were from Syria.

The journey is not for the faint of heart. In April alone, 1,308 people drowned or went missing trying to cross the Mediterranean.

Continue reading →

Marwa’s Story: A Syrian in Scotland

Image

1

Marwa is from Aleppo in Syria.

The country’s largest city, and one that has suffered greatly in power struggles between the regime and rebel forces.  At the time of writing the sole supply route to the regime-held areas of the city has been cut off by an ISIS advance, leaving hundreds of thousands stranded with the price of basic goods sky rocketing.

Continue reading →

Lebanon’s Story: Response to the Syrian refugee crisis

Image

Reply

Lebanon’s story is a complex and difficult one.

I want to share an article (link temporarily removed) I wrote about the Syrian refugee crisis in Lebanon last summer. Back then the warnings were dire and the government had taken very little action to accommodate what was, at one point, an astonishing 12,000 Syrians crossing into Lebanon per week.

Since then the government has taken action, but not for the benefit of the Syrians. At the start of 2015 the Lebanese government introduced new “visa” rules, designed to slow the flow of refugees across the border.

Continue reading →