Middle East Research and Information Project

Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

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North Africa's Invisible Refugees — 278_wilson

MER Article

North Africa's Invisible Refugees

It is December 2014, and on a chilly desert night in a refugee camp, a family sits in a circle inside their tent. Each family member wraps as much of his or her person as possible in a shared blanket. The mother, Almuadala, is making tea on a charcoal furnace.

(Author not identified) • 9 min read

MER Article

Letter from Ellinikon

On a bright and sunny day in early April, outside a terminal at what was once the Ellinikon International Airport in Athens, I listened as Javad, 16, told the story of the second refugee flight of his life. Javad (not his real name) is a member of the Hazara ethnic

Parastou Hassouri • 5 min read

MER Article

Growing Up In Wartime

For years prior to the March 2011 uprising in Syria, writers of the sketch comedy series Buq‘at Daw’ (Spotlight) used symbolism and wordplay to mount a not-so-subtle challenge to the regime on state television. [1. Rebecca Joubin, “Resistance Amid Regime Cooptation on the Syrian Television Series Buq‘at Daw’

Hayden Bates, Rebecca Joubin • 12 min read

Mobilizing in Exile — 278_clarke_guran

MER Article

Mobilizing in Exile

The neighborhood of Narlıca sits on the outskirts of the small city of Antakya, Turkey. A spread of low-rise, brick-and-cement buildings separated by unpaved roads, Narlıca was a lightly populated working-class suburb prior to the outbreak of civil war across the border in Syria. Today, with that war dragging into

Gözde Guran, Killian Clarke • 16 min read

MER Article

Putting Refugee Work Permits to Work

For decades, humanitarian experts and international organizations have called upon host countries to give more work permits to refugees. Permits are posed as a way to alleviate the poverty of refugees and lessen their dependency on aid. Host countries have traditionally shunned the notion, however, fearing the creation of permanent

Vicky Kelberer • 5 min read

MER Article

Oasis in the Desert?

From the summer of 2012 through 2014, there were rapid influxes of refugees from Syria into the Zaatari camp in Jordan. The camp’s population spiked in early 2013—from 56,000 in January to a peak of 202,000 just four months later—overwhelming the UN High Commissioner for

Charles Simpson, Denis Sullivan • 17 min read

MER Article

Syrian Refugees in the Media

It was September 2, 2015 when the Syrian refugee crisis abruptly came to dominate the English-language media. On that day broadcast and print outlets led with the iconic image of Alan Kurdi, 3, lying lifeless on a Turkish beach after his family’s failed attempt to cross the Mediterranean Sea

Katty Alhayek • 4 min read

MER Article

NGO Governance and Syrian Refugee "Subjects" in Jordan

The typical image of the Syrian refugee camp in Jordan is one of suffering. Journalistic account after account introduces spectacular stories of devastation and loss. While perhaps dramatized, these tales are not false. Syrian refugee camps have forced hundreds of thousands of strangers to live toge

Madeline Otis Campbell, Sarah Tobin • 18 min read

MER Article

From the Editors (Spring 2016)

[su_heading align="left"]The international legal regime created after World War II to deal with refugees is no remedy for inequalities of state power, on either the regional or the international level.[/su_heading] The Middle East is once again the world’s biggest producer of refugees,

The Editors • 6 min read