Editor’s Note: International Medical Corps’ Yemen Blog presents a rare view of life in Yemen, chronicled by our first responders as they battle one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters—one fueled by poverty, hunger, disease and years of Yemeni factional fighting that erupted into a full-scale civil war in 2015 involving other countries in the …
Despite a recent period of stability in the country, Iraq has far from recovered from its latest tragedy. The aftermath of war and a global pandemic have propelled Iraq into a new phase of its long-running crisis. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has been defeated, and many displaced families have returned …
Last year, I visited Azraq Refugee Camp in Jordan as part of a project that aimed to highlight maternal health, as well as the plight—and resilience—of refugee women. International Medical Corps runs the only fully equipped hospital inside Azraq Camp, where staff members deliver an average of 120 healthy babies each month. During my week-long …
The UN’s refugee agency recently warned that, for the first time since records began, the number of people who have been forced from their homes has exceeded 70 million. Half of the world’s refugees originate from just three countries: Syria, South Sudan and Afghanistan. Syria alone accounts for 6.3 million of them, making it one …
My trip to Jordan with International Medical Corps gave me an opportunity to see a side of the Syrian refugee crisis that I did not expect: happiness. Whether it emanated from the faces of children at the Makani Centers in Amman or Irbid, or the new mom in Azraq camp who treasured feeling safe with …
This month, Syria’s relentless civil war is more than a decade old. The humanitarian crisis left in the wake of this conflict will only grow in the years to come. The fighting, which has claimed an estimated 500,000 lives, has caused more than half of the country’s pre-war population of 21 million to flee their …
American photojournalist Marissa Roth traveled to Jordan in December 2018 as part of her One Person Crying: Women and War photography project. In camp as well as urban settings, in International Medical Corps health clinics and women’s centers, Marissa visited with multiple Syrian refugees whose lives have been torn apart by a brutal eight-year war. She gathered …
Layan and her family lived a good life in Syria before the war. Her father worked as a businessman in Kuwait and made a decent income. She was a child who knew no other life, so war, death and annihilation seemed very distant. No matter where you live, nothing but experience can prepare you for …
International Medical Corps believes that passing on skills and knowledge fosters self-reliance. Training enables people who have been struck by conflict, disease or disaster to not only benefit from aid but also to develop their own, innate potential to become resilient in the face of disaster. This is why the organization has always been so …
I barely make it inside the kitchen before Mohammad and Maen offer me one delicious dish after another—vegetable soup, rice and chicken—based on relatively simple ingredients. It nevertheless tastes divine and, for a brief moment, I forget that I’m standing in a kitchen inside a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan. The cooks—Maen and Mohammad—are both Syrian refugees. …