refugees

• Bangladesh
• United Kingdom

Mahbuba Jebin has been involved in politics since she was a student in Bangladesh. She was a member of the student wing of the current ruling party, the Awami League. For years she lived a life of privilege and power. However, her decision to marry a member of the opposition BNP party put her at odds with many in her own party. A campaign of intimidation started which led her to flee the country she loves and seek asylum in the UK. Despite all the difficulties, she continues to write every day.

• Turkey
• United Kingdom

Zozan Yasar is a Kurdish journalist from Turkey. Denied access to education, Zozan taught herself to read and write and went to university to get a degree before working as a journalist. As a Kurd, she struggled to officially register her Kurdish name with the government in Turkey. After arrests and harassment, she was eventually forced to seek asylum in the UK.

• United Kingdom

At FoodCycle, groups of volunteers cook donated food, which would otherwise have been thrown away, for communities in need around the UK. One of their projects in London is run at the Happy Baby Community for migrant and refugee women and their children. One of the volunteer project leaders is Pepe Clavijo, a Venezuelan migrant who wants to give something back to the community.

• Lebanon
• United Kingdom

In 2008, Ahmed was shot while working as a paramedic in Lebanon during an internal conflict between Shia and Sunni. He arrived in the UK three years ago after a second shooting made him fear for his life. He has been seeking asylum ever since. While his case is still pending, he can’t work and is destitute. Last September he started teaching Lebanese cooking classes with ‘Migrateful’ and the charity has become ‘like a family’ to him.

• Germany
• Syria

One year after the introduction of family reunifications for refugees who have been given subsidiary protection in Germany, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) called for the German government to also recognize siblings as family members that could become eligible for reunification.

• Afghanistan
• Bangladesh
• Iran

At least 17 people have been killed after a bus carrying migrants overturned in eastern Turkey. About 50 people were also injured in the accident that took place in Van province.

• France

Cédric Herrou, the French farmer who shot to fame after defying authorities to help dozens of migrants enter the country illegally, has launched France's first Emmaus-backed farming community at his southern Roya valley property. The project will allow for refugees and homeless people, who are otherwise excluded from the labor market, to work on the farm in exchange for a small stipend.

• Hungary

The UN's special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants criticized Hungary's 2015 decision to declare a state of emergency over the so-called refugee crisis. He added that the measure amounted to little more than scare tactics, and criticized the country's transit zones as being detention facilities.

• Germany
• Libya

After German migrant rescue ship captain Carola Rackete called on Europe to take in hundreds of thousands of migrants stranded in Libya, her most recent public appeal to no longer distinguish between different migrant groups has stirred a debate on so-called climate migrants. We take a look at the complex issue of 'persons displaced in the context of disasters and climate change.'

• Libya

The Libyan government of Fayez al-Sarraj is evaluating the possibility of closing migrant detention centers in the country after an airstrike on the center in Tajoura.

• Kyrgyzstan
• United Kingdom

Ernest Zhanaev is from Kyrgyzstan. He has a long career behind him, first as a banker, then as a human rights defender. Now he wants to make it as a journalist in the UK where he holds refugee status.

• Italy

Between Wednesday and Thursday, some 77 migrants and refugees arrived in Rome through humanitarian corridors. Since February 2016, about 2,100 refugees have arrived in Italy - over 1,600 from Lebanon and 500 from Ethiopia - and about 500 in France, Belgium, and Andorra thanks to the humanitarian initiative.