News and voices from the refugee and migrant experience
Telling the stories that matter - with empathy, insight and purpose
Telling the stories that matter - with empathy, insight and purpose
A migrant’s epic journey through life, love, music, drama and teaching is revealed in a new book. Armenian-Australian Peter Jerijian has traced his life from Lebanon to London and on to Melbourne via South Korea in his memoir ‘Bouncing Back’. The Dandenong resident tells of leaving his family in Lebanon as a young man and […]
Mass migration is here to stay and the world needs to regularise, make safe and reap the economic benefits of the movement of people. This is the core message from Amy Pope, the head of the United Nations’ migration agency…
In the 2004 film ‘The Terminal’, Tom hanks plays an Eastern European man stuck in New York’s John F Kennedy Airport when he is denied entry to the US but cannot return home because a military coup in his homeland…
India has begun deporting people who fled the 2021 military coup back to Myanmar. The first group was sent back to Myanmar last month amid escalating fighting between rebel militia and the ruling military government. Thousands of civilians, including disillusioned…
Conflict and violence remain the main drivers of displacement, made worse by climate shocks and hazards, according to a new report by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the African Union Commission (AUC). The second edition of the Africa…
Thirty-six refugee athletes from eleven different countries, hosted by fifteen National Olympic Committees (NOCs) will compete across a dozen sports at the Paris Olympics. The IOC Refugee Olympic Team was announced at a recent ceremony at Olympic House in Lausanne,…
A stunning exhibition of paintings by Chinese-Australian artist Pei Wang, which range from vibrant still life to impressionist conceptual pieces, is currently on display at the Victorian Artists’ Society. Titled ‘Perception and Metamorphosis’ in the Cato Gallery from 2 May…
Refugees across the globe are coming under threat of expulsion by a growing number of nationalist or autocratic regimes. Syrians who found refuge from the civil war in their homeland in Lebanon and Turkey face being sent home to uncertain…
A former Afghan refugee who employs and trains fellow displaced people in his social enterprise construction business has won the 2024 Australia for UNHCR-SBS Les Murray Award for Refugee Recognition. Hedayat Osyan founded CommUnity Construction seven years ago to support…
Twelve years after he fled Iran in fear of his life Melbourne chef and humanitarian Hamed Allahyari can now call Australia his forever home. As asylum seekers, Hamed and his family lived in limbo as they tried to rebuild their…
A global index, run by the UN refugee agency UNHCR, that publicly ranks countries by how much they are doing to protect refugees could work as a lever increase refugee resettlement. This is the suggestion of a leading academic in…
Millions of migrants across the world do not have access to government funded healthcare that is available to citizens, a new report has found. The report by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) found only half of the countries worldwide…
The European Union parliament has passed tough new changes to its migration and asylum laws that migrant advocates saying undermine human rights. The result ignores the objections of Europe’s resurgent far-right parties, who felt it was not tough enough and…