Displaying items by tag: refugee camps

The mental health crisis at Kiryandongo refugee camp is escalating, with suicides and suicide attempts surging. Between January and October 2024, 41 suicides and over 130 attempts were recorded, highlighting the profound psychological distress faced by refugees. Many are haunted by memories of past trauma, such as bombings. These ongoing fears disrupt daily life and contribute to widespread mental health struggles. Despite the existence of psychosocial support programs, resources at the camp are insufficient to meet the overwhelming demand. With over 1.7 million refugees in Uganda, local healthcare services are under immense pressure, but specialised care is often inaccessible due to high costs. The UNHCR is calling on governments, the private sector, and international donors to increase funding for mental health programs to address this urgent need.

Nine women and seventeen children are taking the Australian government to court, arguing that Australia has ‘effective control’ of their detention and the power to set them free from Syria’s Roj refugee camp. These Australian wives, widows, and children of slain or jailed IS members claim a legal right to return to Australia. Most are in squalid and violent detention camps, some held for four years. Children have untreated shrapnel wounds, malnourishment, and serious mental illnesses. Some were born in the camp and know no life outside it. Save the Children Australia say that legal action was a last resort, but they were left with no choice but to take Australia’s government to court. Pray that the US-backed Kurdish SDF army and the refugee camp officials will actively cooperate in the release of these Australians as they did for other countries, including Denmark, USA, Germany, France, Sweden, and the Netherlands.

11-year-old Abdel at a Turkey refugee camp spent most evenings reading a New Testament that local Christian workers gave him - to the grief of his Muslim parents. Recently his mother became angry at him and ordered him to do his schoolwork. Abdel told her it reminded him of the passage he had just read in Matthew 19:13-15 about children being kept from drawing close to the Prophet Jesus, as He is known among Muslims. Stunned, his mother asked him where he had read this. Abdel told her the passage was in the Gospel of Matthew. As scripture is given to refugees the missionaries sometimes find children learning the gospel and explaining it to their parents, or vice versa. His mother explained this event to his father and together they sat down and read the New Testament. The missionary said, ‘I am not saying that they accepted Christ immediately, but truly God is doing amazing miracles here.’

The military junta continues to bomb civilians, and over 28,000 homes have been burnt down since the February 2021 coup. As order breaks down, soaring food prices cause a hunger crisis. Many are fleeing Myanmar if they get a chance. AMG has established a camp with over fifty homes for refugee families and two hostels for lone children. An AMG member met a young Christian woman at the camp who suffered watching her mother abused and scarred by her alcoholic father. Then her mother became a Christian and prayed fervently for her father. Miraculously, he came to Christ and left his drinking and drugs. As the military violence approached, her parents sent her across the border to safety. Myanmar females live in fear of being sexually assaulted by the military. One boy came into the hostel for lone children traumatised, always wanting to fight others. Now, his voice has been heard singing with other children. Pray for God’s protection over refugee camps.

For months, Ethiopia’s civil war has raged in Tigray, demolishing infrastructure and threatening famine. Despite talks of ceasefire, no end to the violence is in sight. Most concerning is the involvement of Eritrean soldiers in the conflict. Pastor Eric Foley says they have destroyed two refugee camps in the Tigray region. ‘They took people who had escaped from Eritrea and were living in the camps back to Eritrea and imprisoned them. Those who escaped the raids fled further into Ethiopia. The Tigray Church is a beacon during all this chaos. People are gathering in churches, grieving at the churches, bringing dead bodies to churchyards to bury them in mass graves. The Gospel is still making a way for people to have hope. The Christians are opening their homes and doing all the things that Jesus taught us to do.’

Home is a place where everyone can flourish: somewhere we can belong, feel safe, and grow. Millions of people, forced to flee their homes because of years of conflict, are having to raise their families in cramped conditions in refugee camps, lacking the basic essentials. Life is a struggle to survive. Pray for people like Tamam who used to live a quiet and comfortable life in Northern Syria, with her loving husband and children. Then IS occupied the area; no electricity or running water, crops and animals died. Her husband was killed, and they joined around 1 million Syrians living in makeshift settlements in the middle of a slum in Lebanon. Pray for the mission agencies bringing relief in dangerous situations, and for the network of churches attempting to support displaced people.

Doctors say Covid-19 is now rampant in the refugee camps of Idlib, north-west Syria. The number of positive coronavirus cases rose tenfold in this region last month. Aid agencies say that due to a lack of testing, the real figure is expected to be much higher. In March the UN, aid workers, and doctors began to give stark warnings that camps for the displaced in this area of Syria could be devastated by a coronavirus outbreak. At that time they said 100,000 might die unless medical supplies arrived urgently. See Pray for nations to be generous in their giving, and for the aid agencies to be better funded as they work to distribute much-needed equipment, testing resources and medical advice to save lives. See

The Centre for Global Policy (CGP) has called on European governments to intervene urgently on behalf of 750 children of EU member states citizenship who are held in IS detention camps in Syria. CGP’s latest report said that urgent intervention and support was needed. The report, entitled ‘The children of IS detainees - Europe's dilemma’, was based on research that focused on two camps in northeast Syria where 70,000 women and children are being detained. At least 12,000 of the detainees are foreign nationals. While public opinion in EU member states is strongly opposed to repatriating IS members and affiliates, the report emphasised, ‘Leaving them in these camps will not keep anyone safe’.

Rohingya pastor, Taher, and his 14-year-old daughter were abducted from Bangladesh Cox’s Bazar a refugee camp after 59 men attacked 22 Christian families, beating residents, vandalising homes, and looting property. At least 12 Christian refugees were injured and hospitalised and a makeshift Christian church and school were smashed. Families were relocated to a UN transit centre and filed a police case against the armed ethnic group, Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army. Taher’s wife, Roshida, fears her husband is dead and that her daughter has been forced to convert to Islam. She said, ‘No one can give me clear information.’ Approximately 1,500 Rohingya Christians are among 700,000 predominantly Muslim Rohingya refugees who fled ‘ethnic cleansing’ in 2017. Authorities described the attack as a ‘law and order incident’ - not Christian persecution. They do little to protect Christians. One said, ‘if victims wanted safety they should ‘go to the moon.’

Arash Hampay arrived in Greece in 2016, escaping persecution in Iran and crossing the Aegean Sea from the Turkish coast. After spending 18 months on the island of Lesbos, he now lives in Athens, where he works with homeless asylum-seekers. ‘It is two different hells’, Hampay, now a registered refugee and activist, said, referring to the struggles people face in both places. Greece promised to move 20,000 asylum seekers from overcrowded island reception centres to the mainland by early 2020, following a surge in refugee arrivals this summer. Since October 9,500 asylum-seekers have been moved, sparking anti-refugee protests in affected areas. Meanwhile, some 17,500 people have arrived from Turkey, and overcrowding is now worse on the islands, where 38,800 asylum seekers now reside.