Stories from the world’s refugee camps and settlements – in pictures

A big number of people in third world coutries are displaced. Most of them are living in refugee camps. These are just a few stories among the millions.

Arond 50,000- 54,000 people – mostly from war stricken countries in the Arab world lie Syria – are currently hosted in Jordan’s Azraq refugee camp, which has grown by 86% since January. More than half of the camp’s population are children, including some 364 unaccompanied minors. Many families are trying to build a life for themselves in the camp, despite soaring temperatures in summer and bracing cold in winter. The basic needs to protect those in the camp from the extremes of winter are still being attended to by UNHCR and other aid organisations, with high demand for heaters, gas cylinders and thermal blankets.

Like most of Iraq’s refugee camps, Kawergosk in Iraqi Kurdistan is home to a large population of Syrians fleeing the conflict in their homeland. More than four million Syrians have sought refuge across international borders since 2011, mostly in neighbouring countries including Iraq and Lebanon. About 250,000 Syrians and one million internally displaced Iraqis are currently hosted in the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, placing enormous strain on local resources. At Kawergosk, vital education services for displaced children are under threat, due to an economic crisis in the region.

Syrian refugees Hany and his younger brother Ashraf share a laugh outside their family’s shelter at an informal tented settlement in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. Ashraf was born on 25 March 2011 – the day that Syria’s conflict began. Hany and Ashraf’s family fled Homs in 2014, after three years of siege by government forces had destroyed much of the city. Hany was a talented student in Syria and his most precious possessions now are his high school diplomas. Holding them proudly, he says: “These are my life, they are my future. I left everything behind in Syria, but not these.”

Tanzania’s Nduta refugee camp is home to some 43,000 refugees fleeing political unrest and the threat of tribal conflict in neighbouring Burundi. The camp was reopened by UNHCR in response to overcrowding in Nyarugusu, one of the largest refugee camps in the world. About 200 refugees a day began arriving at Nduta in the wake of violence following a failed coup, triggered by president Pierre Nkurunziza’s unconstitutional decision to run for a third term in May 2015.

Before Aleppo, some of the worst fighting of the Syrian conflict took place in Homs. Here, Radhi, 85, stands on the street outside his destroyed home in Wadi Al-Sayeh, in the old city district. Radhi recalls what happened with deep sadness: “It is painful. I worked hard for 40 years, put all my money into it, only to find it destroyed.” One of the biggest challenges facing returnees is the rebuilding of their homes in old Homs and Hamidiyeh, a project supported by UNHCR.

Established in 2012, Zaatari in Jordan is the world’s fifth-largest refugee camp, and home to more Syrian refugees than any other camp. With a population of nearly 80,000, it has taken on many features of a longer-term settlement, with shops, cafes and other businesses setting up within its confines. After arriving from Daraa in Syria in 2013 with her family, Alaa (pictured) met her husband in the camp and is now a UNHCR DAFI scholar, studying to become a teacher at university. The DAFI initiative was created by UNHCR to provide funding for the education of refugees in their host countries

Rita Lubyanaya, 13, and her 11-year-old sister Yana return to their badly damaged home in eastern Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced and an estimated 10,000 buildings damaged or destroyed in the conflict that began in the region in 2014. Efforts to rebuild homes have been hampered by intermittent fighting, severe restrictions on movements, suspension of benefit payments to internally displaced people and the interruption of aid to non-government controlled areas. UNHCR, local NGOs, volunteers and village administrators were helping to rehabilitate 1,500 homes by late 2016.

The deprivations of war are etched on the face of 66-year-old Vladimir Garmash as he surveys his destroyed home in the village of Georgievka in eastern Ukraine. Thousands of homes were damaged and tens of thousands of civilians were forced to live in basements and bomb shelters for months at a time after the conflict erupted in 2014

The Sherkole refugee camp in western Ethiopia is home to about 4,500 people who have fled the ongoing violence and instability in nearby South Sudan. In spite of the difficulties they face with some aspects of daily life in the camp, 13-year-old Nyamamynha and her younger sister are determined to excel in their studies. Here, they read their homework assignments with the help of a solar lantern, donated by Sweden’s Stichting af Jochnick Foundation. “We like school very much, but without light it would be very difficult for us to read,” says Nyamamynha.

Many people displaced by the severe fighting in eastern Aleppo have sought refuge in the Jibreen temporary shelter in the south-east of the city. Conditions are desperate and there are now families who depend entirely on the aid they receive from humanitarian agencies working on the ground such as UNHCR.