Current Analysis Seeking Shelter in Jordan’s Cities Umm Anas’ four-room apartment rings with the muffled laughter of children told to hush. Her six sons and daughters and four neighborhood children huddle around a tiny, rickety television in the otherwise unfurnished living room. Arabic-dubbed episodes of the “How to Train Your Dragon” television ser Vicky Kelberer • 8 min read
Current Analysis Where Is Israel in the Refugee Crisis? Last week, SodaStream [http://www.merip.org/mero/mero041814] CEO Daniel Birnbaum and Mayor Talal Al-Krenawi of the Negev Bedouin city Rahat issued a joint statement [http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/SodaStream-offers-to-take-in-Syrian-refugees-417830] offering the absorption of 1,000 refugees from S Michael Fin, Callie Maidhof • 4 min read
Current Analysis We Can—and Should—Do More to Help Syrian Refugees Imagine that 58 million Americans were streaming into Canada and Mexico, many with only a small satchel and the clothes on their backs. Picture another 102 million residents of the Eastern seaboard seeking refuge with relatives in the Midwest and West. That terrifying mental exercise gives a sense Chris Toensing • 2 min read
MER Article Status-less in Cyber City When refugees from the Syrian war first began to stream into Jordan, the Jordanian Ministry of Interior registered the newcomers and placed them in the care of families, under the kafala system, mainly in the capital of Amman. The kafala or guardianship system has roots in Bedouin customs, but in mo Maisam Alahmed • 6 min read
MER Article Eritrean Refugees' Trek Through the Americas TAPACHULA, MEXICO—It is not hard to find the Eritreans in this low-key town near the Pacific coast a few miles north of the Guatemalan border. They gather on the front steps of the Palafox Hotel with the only other Africans here—Somalis, Ethiopians, a handful of Ghanaians, all of them migrants—or th Dan Connell • 9 min read
Current Analysis Conflict, Forced Migration and Property Claims Amidst widespread fighting in Iraq and Syria, millions of distressed civilians have fled their homes. In Yemen as well, war has led to mass displacement as people try to escape threats to their lives and livelihoods. These instances of forced migration create overwhelming immediate problems such as Sandra Joireman, Jon Unruh • 3 min read
Current Analysis Crushing Repression of Eritrea's Citizens Is Driving Them Into Migrant Boats Abinet spent six years completing her national service in one of Eritrea’s ministries, but when she joined a banned Pentecostal church, she was arrested, interrogated, threatened, released and then shadowed in a clumsy attempt to identify other congregants. She arranged to be smuggled out of the cou Dan Connell • 4 min read
Current Analysis A Grim New Phase in Yemen’s Migration History “Yemen’s conflict is getting so bad that some Yemenis are fleeing to Somalia,” read a recent headline at the Vice News website. The article mentions [https://news.vice.com/article/yemens-conflict-is-getting-so-bad-that-some-yemenis-are-fleeing-to-somalia?utm_source=vicenewstwitter] that 32 Yemenis, Marina de Regt • 3 min read
Current Analysis Trapped in Refuge The daily lives of Syrian refugees in Jordan have always been difficult, but until the winter of 2014-2015, they were defined more by concern about making ends meet than outright panic. Christiane Fröhlich, Matthew R. Stevens • 9 min read
Current Analysis From Sinai to Lampedusa: An Eritrean Journey Two human tragedies will forever scar Eritreans’ memories of the past decade, during which hundreds of thousands fled repression and despair in their homeland to seek sanctuary in more open, democratic societies: the brutal kidnapping, torture and ransom of refugees in the Egyptian Sinai and the dro Dan Connell • 12 min read
Current Analysis Ghosts of the Future Hatay -- a Turkish province on the border with Syria that is now flooded with Syrian refugees -- has a special status in Turkey. In the words of a Syrian doctor to whom we spoke in the summer of 2014 and who failed to get a residency permit to live there, “It’s like [the province] is not exactly par Nick Danforth, Noga Malkin • 9 min read
Current Analysis Security and Resilience Among Syrian Refugees in Jordan Imagine living in a refugee camp. For most, that phrase is enough to conjure images of makeshift tents, dusty pathways, queues for water and food, and above all, fear. Now imagine living in Zaatari refugee camp in a northern part of Jordan 7.5 miles from the Syrian border and Dar‘a region, sharing a Denis Sullivan, Sarah Tobin • 14 min read
