Category: Uncategorized (Page 16 of 20)

Russia’s network of forcible re-education and militarization sites for Ukrainian children from occupied territory is far more extensive than previously known, Yale University researchers said in a report released last week.

War crimes investigators with the university’s Humanitarian Research Lab have identified 210 sites in Russia and occupied Ukraine that they say have housed Ukrainian children for military training, pro-Kremlin education, and other efforts aimed at assimilating them into Russian culture.

Since Russia began its full-scale invasion in 2022, the Ukrainian government has identified at least 20,000 children from occupied territories that have been forcibly taken to Russia, some of them eventually placed with Russian families and given Russian citizenship. Some aid groups estimate that the actual number is far higher. 

The network of facilities, the Yale researchers said, spans summer camps, orphanages, universities, military schools, and at least one religious site. In addition to finding nearly double the number of locations they expected, said the lab’s director, Nathaniel Raymond, they were also surprised by the scope of militarization activities.

“To be able to visually see from 450 miles above the Earth’s surface that they are training kids at gun ranges and in trench fortifications that directly resemble the front-line fortifications we see at this stage in the Ukraine war was truly chilling,” Raymond said.

Maria Zakharova, a Russian government spokesperson, denied the Yale report as “fake fabrications” on Thursday.

“No one bothers to provide any facts and no one bears any responsibility,” she said at a press conference.

The investigators from the Humanitarian Research Lab relied on satellite imagery, Russian social media posts, government announcements, and other publicly available, open-source information to identify re-education facilities — including Russian government property data that showed it owned about half of the sites in question. Around one-quarter of the 210 sites had been identified in previous investigations.

Around 62 percent of locations hosted re-education activity for Ukrainian children, including history lectures, museum visits, and programming focused on Russian patriotic themes. Additionally, children underwent some form of military training or militarization at nearly 40 facilities; in one case, children at a site run by Russia’s Ministry of Education assembled drones, mine detectors, robots, and other military equipment.

The findings have some limitations. The Yale researchers could not determine the number of Ukrainian children located at the facilities, nor whether they were still being held. They also cautioned that the actual number of sites could be much higher.

Still, the report is significant for identifying the locations of so many re-education centers and tying them directly to the Russian government, said Vladyslav Havrylov, a Ukrainian historian and a fellow with the Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues at Georgetown University.

“It’s once more strong evidence that in high level of Russian governors, they know about forcible deportation from occupied territories, they support this policy, they want to re-education and militarize the children,” he said. “It’s a planned policy from [the] Russian Federation.”

“We try to force force them to live with the reality that now the majority of the camps locations are known,” Raymond said. “That’s because they’re trying to muddle the numbers as part of the negotiations, to make it harder for the Ukrainians to specifically hold them to definite individuals, definite overall cohort numbers, and access requests to specific locations.”

However, the Humanitarian Research Lab’s future is uncertain after it lost its federal funding due to Trump administration cuts in March. The lab has since kept running on private donations, Raymond said.

The issue of Ukrainian children has generated international outrage and is one of few aspects of the war with bipartisan agreement in Congress. In the days after the Yale lab’s new report, Sens. Chuck Grassley and Amy Klobuchar, a Republican and a Democrat, took to Fox News to re-up calls for unconditionally returning Ukrainian children before any peace agreement with Russia is finalized.

WASHINGTON — On Friday, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem announced that Temporary Protected Status (TPS) will be terminated for Syrian nationals enrolled in the program, effective Nov. 21, 2025.

Syrians have been enrolled in the TPS program — part of the Immigration Act of 1990 passed by Congress — since 2012, during the Obama administration. More than 6,000 Syrian nationals are currently enrolled.

The Secretary of Homeland Security has the power to designate a foreign country as TPS eligible if “conditions in the country that temporarily prevent the country’s nationals from returning safely, or in certain circumstances, where the country is unable to handle the return of its nationals adequately”, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) website. The decision also follows the Trump administration’s revocation of TPS status for Venezuelan nationals, which was terminated last April.

“This is what restoring sanity to America’s immigration system looks like,” Tricia McLaughlin, the DHS assistant secretary of public affairs, said. “Conditions in Syria no longer prevent [Syrians] from returning home. Syria has been a hotbed of terrorism and extremism for nearly two decades, and it is contrary to our national interest to allow Syrians to remain in our country. TPS is meant to be temporary.”

The news release, which was published on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website on Sept. 19, noted that Syrians who choose to deport voluntarily within 60 days would be given a “complimentary plane ticket, a $1,000 exit bonus, and potential future opportunities for legal immigration.”

The move follows a comprehensive lifting of U.S. economic sanctions against Syria via executive order last June, following the fall of the dictator Bashar al-Assad after 24 years in power.

The announcement quickly garnered the attention of major U.S. and international media outlets.

Responses in Syria have varied. According to Anagha Subash Nair, a multimedia journalist based in Damascus, Syria who covers Syrian and Lebanese politics, both gratitude and resentment have been cornerstone to Syrians’ relationship to the U.S. and the West.“There’s a group of them who feel betrayed because the West interfered during the Assad regime, but didn’t do much … to militarily intervene,” she said. She also mentioned that the U.S. financial and military support for Israel has contributed to negative images of the West.

“[Others] feel very grateful to the West and Trump because he lifted the sanctions, at least on paper,” she added.

Nair said that while this complex sentiment remains, emigration to the West is still desirable for most Syrians.

“There’s a lot of nuance there,” she said. “Ultimately, life in the West is of better quality, [and] naturalizing into a Western country does give you more mobility. There are [many] factors to take into consideration,” she added.

Rose Habib, a Syrian undergraduate on an F1 visa attending Princeton University, echoed Nair’s assessment that the topic remains complex for many Syrians. Habib personally knew of two friends who were enrolled in the TPS program.

“Growing up, if anyone could go to the U.S., they definitely would do it,” she said. “At the same time, [if they can’t,] they just lived with that. There are definitely more things that are on people’s minds [than] American policy,” she said.

Habib, also a member of the Alawite ethnoreligious minority from Latakia, Syria, emphasized that Syrian sentiments on immigration are difficult to generalize precisely because of the nation’s volatile political history and diverse ethnic composition.

“When you say ‘Syrians’, there are many different ethnicities: Arabs, Kurds, whatever,” she said. “Before the fall of the Assad regime, everyone wanted to leave … now, [it’s more so] the minorities who are trying to leave.”

Habib mentioned the series of massacres against Alawite civilians that occurred last March, where armed remnants of the former Assad regime and Syrian National Army (SNA) militia killed more than 1,000 civilians in Western Syria. While Habib acknowledged that there is a group of Syrians who feel enthusiastic about settling back home, she says there still remains a large demand for emigrating to the West, especially from those who have experienced a threat of violence.

“Everyone I know who is part of a community that’s in danger, or was in danger for the past few months, [still] wants to leave [Syria],” she said. “They don’t want anything to do with the [new] government.”

One thing that struck me in Ben Taub’s reporting was the use of OSINT and internet data to track otherwise secretive figures like Halabi. CIJA investigators, for instance, found his Facebook accounts and tracked his location via pings on his Skype profile. My favorite detail was when Taub found his Whatsapp profile, with a photo of the man himself on a bridge somewhere in Hungary. I’m continually surprised by the information that be gleaned simply from carefully looking at public data with some amount of patience. In my news story, I cover a new report from a lab at Yale that tracks Ukrainian children who have been forcibly deported to and re-educated in Russia. The lab’s work often starts with social media posts, the lab’s director told me. Russian officers at a repurposed summer camp or military base might snap a photo with Ukrainian children and post it (publicly) to Telegram, Twitter, or Facebook, seemingly unaware that it has been geotagged. Investigators can also confirm activities relevant to Russification through posts or even satellite images.

Taub’s reporting clearly blends in-depth reporting alongside extensive documents, such as the hundreds of Syrian government records collected by CIJA that were seized by rebels during the civil war. But in some ways, the narrative feels a little too dry and clinical, nicely lifting from the transcript of an asylum interview without further color. Taub’s best moments were clear scenes, of him mocking on Oliver Lang’s old apartment door or of Lang’s personality-filled texts to his boss. Patrick Kingsley’s reporting, in contrast, manages to meld extensive, quoted interviews — although there are clearly parts that are more fuzzy around the edges — with important cues about demeanor and emotion that are sometimes more informative than the quotes themselves. I thought Mikhail’s technique of blocking out an entire story, as she does about midway through the assigned portion, was surprisingly effective. At the price of losing the specific context in which that story is being told to the writer, you earn a much more vivid and immersive depiction of her frame. This move also allows her to clearly bring out the voice of the original source — although storyteller is evidently a much better description. That’s of course not not possible with the parts of Taub’s reporting that relied heavily on documents. Sometimes, document-based stories are impactful enough on their own to deeply impact readers. More often, though, it seems that journalists should work to blend reports with human narrative, like we saw with Azmat Khan last week.

We’ve been mostly focused on the “aftermath” of being an immigrant: programs like TPS, suspended visas, refugee aid and resettlement centers. The status of being in limbo. The status of being essentially without status. This week’s news stories were along the same lines, outlining the reinstatement of Syria into BAMF’s Return and Reintegration Assistance Program, in the aftermath of Assad’s fall from power, the fear of Syrian migrants living in Germany of potentially needing to return to Syria  due to the same event, Syrian doctors’ deliberations over whether to stay in Germany or to return to Syria, having filled in critical gaps in the German health sector. All of this reinforces for us the reality that the process of migration continues long after a human being has physically moved across borders. 

But Kingsley’s and Mikhail’s books were critical reminders that we, as journalists, cannot forget to attend to the process of becoming a refugee before reaching one’s destination: both of being persecuted in one’s home country, as The Beekeeper so vividly portrays in the Yazidis’ case, and the harrowing journeys captured in The New Odyssey. It struck me that those living in a country that typically receives immigrants, like many of us in the U.S., might be more inclined to follow the stories that impact migrants once they reach their destination. I find myself naturally hooked to news of Chicago ICE raids, the construction of new inhumane detention centers, the end of protections for certain migrant groups. But I appreciated how these books re-widened my lens on refugeehood into how the process begins with persecution in one’s country of origin and how a migrant might carry that forward: why people need protections in the first place.

The books took different approaches to trying to familiarize the reader with their subjects’ struggles and I think The Beekeeper was more successful. Kingsley was telling a story that had been told before, and he seemed to know it, and play it up. But I was a bit put off by his decision to lean on The Odyssey and classical Greek mythology to tell this modern story. Kingsley writes in the prologue, “Today’s Sirens are smugglers with their empty promises of safe passage; the violent border guard a contemporary Cyclops. Three millennia after their classical forebears created the founding myths of the European continent, today’s voyagers are writing a new narrative that will influence Europe, for better or worse, for years to come” (Kingsley, P. 10-11). But other than dramatic ocean journeys, the Odyssey references feel more like an appeal to Western audiences and classical values than a truly justified comparison. It’s the kind of fun context that usually makes a longer-form story more enjoyable, but this one didn’t do it for me. Is the clever war-hero Odysseus, who was trying to get home for so long, really comparable to the modern refugee? It’s not that I don’t see what Kingsley is getting at, it’s more that I feel stories like Hashem’s flight from Syria can speak for themselves. (And I say all this as someone who really does love the Odyssey). 

Mikhail’s appeal worked much better for me. Part of it was that every sentence was a shock: I’d never before read about the Yazidi genocide and its treatment of women and children, so all was freshly egregious. The refrain of Mikhail’s role as a teacher, and whether she should tell her students stories like Nadia’s, really worked for me because even if she didn’t tell her students, she was telling us. And the reporting and storytelling reminded me of Asmat Khan’s in their meticulousness (the use of Google Maps to scope out areas of Syria and track how they’d changed, the commitment to Abdullah as a main character), but it was more gripping for its book-form. I think Siyeon also really got at the success of the book’s poetic qualities and the blurring of subject and narrator. This week’s readings reminded me to pay attention to the whole arc of migration and how best to narratively capture that arc when writing about it.

This week’s readings and viewings were a difficult set to work through. Mikhail’s The Beekeeper: Rescuing Stolen Women of Iraq was a favorite. The book described the pain and suffering endured by the Yazidis with the kind of poetic prowess that makes readers, including myself, to physically reel and ache in their seats. The story of Reem and Zuhour was especially poignant — even while being the daughter of a committed Daresh fighter, Reem allows Zuhour and her children to stay in a hidden part of her home alongside her sewing equipment, and through the weeks helps devise a method for Zuhour and her children to escape.

The stories themselves were powerful on their own, of course, but I was also duly impressed by Mikhail’s narrative decisions and construction of the stories as a whole. The book begins by an anecdotal illustration of Mikhail’s time as an Arabic teacher in the U.S.. She’s struck by a sense of disillusionment as the Arabic letters she teaches her students — meaning nothing more than the sound and shape they are to the students themselves — are the letters that Mikhail knows signified incoming suffering and death for the women she wrote about.

I’ve encountered in my past journalism classes the notion of ‘fly on the wall journalism’ — where journalists remove themselves entirely from the narrative scope of their writing, effectively erasing the role that they played in conversing with and constructing the story of their subject. Mikhail effectively does the opposite of that. Her own story and perspective as a writer is an imperative that anchors the story of the women. We begin with Mikhail in Chapter 1 and end with her, too, in Chapter 7. From the harrowing stories of all the women in between, it isn’t immediately clear in Chatper 7 whether Mikhail is speaking as herself or immersing the reader into another tale of a Yazidi’s escape — the changes in narrative point of view throughout the book adds to the confusion (Mikhail switches from the third, to second, to first person in different instances).

But the kind of poetic ambiguity that blurs subject and object is perhaps an intended one by Mikhail. It reminds the reader that they, like the author, are intertwined in our humanity to the women of the story in ways beyond our comprehension. The mode of Mikhail’s narrative construction, then, is effectively fundamental to her journalistic storytelling. As I thought about how I’m going to write my migrant profile, the book made me reflect on the conventions of profile and feature journalism that I too have internalized and might benefit more from reworking or abandoning entirely.

This week’s readings shed light upon the process of escape and the current status of Syrian and Yazidi refugees. I found Patrick Kingsley’s The New Odyssey and Dunya Mikhail’s The Beekeeper: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq to be stunning works of interview-based narrative non-fiction. These works use first-person accounts of refugee voyages to safety in order to outline the struggles and terror refugees face in their escape from mortal danger. Together, these pieces not only describe the resilience of refugees navigating the impossible choices that come with leaving one’s home country, but also discuss an often forgotten aspect of the refugee experience – how displacement continues to affect the daily lives of the refugees even after they reach safety. 

Additionally, in reading news stories about the current status of Syrian refugees in Germany, I drew numerous parallels between the circumstances of relocated Syrian nationals in Germany and the U.S. This week I reported on the Trump Administration’s announcement that it would be terminating the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) of Syrian nationals residing in the U.S thirteen years after the status was first granted. As a part of this announcement, Syrian migrants in the U.S. have been given sixty days to either voluntarily leave the country, essentially self-deport, or be subject to arrest and deportation. In this announcement, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, stated that individuals who choose to self-deport will be provided with, “a complimentary plane ticket, a $1,000 exit bonus, and potential future opportunities for legal immigration.” This is similar to the idea propagated by German conservative lawmaker Jens Spahn, who suggested that the German government should charter planes to return resettled Syrians in Germany to Syria, as well as provide them with a “starting fund of 1,000 euros ($1,055),” as reported by The New Arab. These material rewards for leaving the country underscore the growing hostility towards migrants and refugees that have grown more present in both nations throughout recent years, as is emphasized by the rise of right-wing nationalist parties. It was surprising to me that these government entities think that cash rewards for leaving the country will be enough to spur people to return home to a potentially unsafe environment. As I noted in my news article, the U.S. Department of State and the United Nations have both recently released safety warnings for terrorist attacks in Syria. In the U.S., I think it is the fear of inhumane and dangerous detention practices, rather, that will be more influential in spurring voluntary deportations. In the coming months, I am interested in seeing whether these rewards for choosing to leave the country will influence migrants to self-deport and, further, if these rewards ever actually reach these migrants. 

Since the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, many Germans have shown their support for the idea that Syrians should go back to their country of origin. This thought process, in my opinion, is quite dangerous. Although sending refugees back in some ways seems like a rational and reasonable decision, it ultimately undermines the asylum process and obscures a more complicated lived reality. Syrians and Yazidis in Germany have both been reshaped by their new environments. Not only that, but a return in many cases is not only unjust, but it is also unrealistic. Expecting refugees to immediately pack up their lives and help their homeland rebuild after years of civil war and conflict is not right.

Furthermore, expecting refugees who have lived in Germany for years to pack up their lives and go back “home” asserts the idea that there is a home to go back to in the first place. In the YouTube video made by ARTE.tv, Hakeema’s story helps illustrate the harsh reality she escaped from. Not only that, but her return to Iraq helped show that she did not return to a family home, but rather destroyed houses and haunting memories. Germany, in many ways, is her new home.

Economically, Syrians and many other refugees are also deeply embedded in the German way of life. The Washington Post’s reporting on the Syrian doctors who have helped fill gaps within Germany’s healthcare system is just one example of this. Rania Kadib Alban, for example, is an ENT in Germany, where she and her family live. Her contributions to the German economy, along with countless other Syrian refugees, is priceless. However, Syrians have made more than just an economic impact. They have also established themselves socially. Rania Kadib Alban’s children, for example, “prefer German food to Syrian.” This statement, although seemingly unimportant, highlights the assimilation that has already occurred. Likewise, many refugees have had children in the country who have only ever known a German existence. The removal of these refugees would not only destabilize the German economy, but it would also destabilize the German way of life.

Finally, I think it is important to mention that the reasoning given to support Syrian removal from Germany is flawed. Many articles this week mentioned that Germans who are on the far right believe that any Syrian refugees celebrating the fall of the Assad regime should go back to Syria to help rebuild. I think this thinking fails to consider that many Syrians are better able to rebuild Syria while in Germany than they ever would be in Syria itself. As the Washington Post article highlighted, many Syrians would love to help rebuild their homeland, but many expressed that they did not know whether they wanted to go back. Likewise, ARTE.tv documentary helps show the impact remittances have on Hakemma’s family, who still reside in Iraq. Ultimately, her German income helps sustain her family and the local economy in her cousin’s region. Additionally, many articles highlighted the celebrations Syrians had when learning that the Assad regime had fallen. This political involvement in Syria and presumably Germany as well, may be more useful in helping Syria recover than any physical return could be.  Additionally, a return may also be dangerous and failing to consider the safety of the individuals you are sending back is wrong.

When understanding this situation in Syria over the past decade and a half is taken in full, it becomes apparent that those who faced persecution have not stopped struggling. Putting the readings and video from this week in chronological order, Syrians first lived through a civil war, were terrorized by ISIS, lived in poorly accommodating refugee camps for those who escaped, looked for asylum, and now face pressure to return to an insatiable regime. 

The Beekeeper of Sinjar was one of the most horrifying and detailed accounts of a mass tragedy I have ever read. It is one thing to learn about the holocaust in history books, but to know that these stories happened in my lifetime was truly saddening. Reading the stories of so many women who were forced into abusive situations and the people who helped them, I question our own morality today in the comforts of a (relatively) stable democracy and society. I understand that policy-makers must make decisions in the best interest of their constituents, however I find it hard to believe that someone could read this book and not want to offer the protections of their country. Perhaps it is my optimism that thinks this, but I believe that if those who held hostility towards Syrian refugees would read this book, the xenophobia would begin to dissipate. The personal narrative through which this story is told allows Mikhail to cover atrocities in a way that keeps the reader connected to the characters, and root for the protagonists risking their lives. 

The video we watched of the refugee camps was also disheartening. Without other options, refugees were living without sufficient water, food, or medical care. It was especially sad to see that the few mental health resources provided were not being used by most, even though it is undoubtedly true that all refugees are still suffering from trauma. The reason for this, as was speculated, is that there is a stigma around seeking support for mental struggles. I can understand how families go through such terrible experiences, knowing that others of their same community face the same problems, and do not believe themselves to be harmed much worse than their neighbors, and decide not to ask for help. The fact that this type of suffering has been almost normalized for this community is unacceptable.

Moving forward to this year, it seems as though Germany and other European countries have begun retreating into their hole of xenophobia again, with the struggles of Syrians being many years ago. The idea of the government paying migrants to leave and go back to Syria certainly sends the message that they are not wanted. I find the article discussing the ideas that now there are different categories for Syrian refugees, with “good” Syrians being doctors who are necessary to their welfare, while “bad” Syrians do not hold high-paying jobs and should return. I find this rhetoric to be entirely hypocritical, and almost aiding in the brain-drain of the country.

Across this week’s readings, a common thread was how Afghans who managed to reach countries like Pakistan or Germany, whether in limbo or fully resettled, continued to advocate for others left behind. This can be seen in the case of Shakerah Baresh, who resettled in Germany with her children, pleaded with German authorities: “Please, bring the refugees that are now in Pakistan, especially the activists, to Germany. Because it’s a matter of life and death.” This theme of solidarity “we’re all in this fight together”stood out. Yet I was struck by the absence of voices from Afghans who may not share that perspective, who might reflect the anti-immigrant sentiment the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has weaponized in recent elections, or who might even support restricting refugee programs they once relied on.

The few glimpses of tension appeared in a Reuters article, where some Afghans expressed concern about being unfairly associated with asylum seekers linked to deadly attacks in Germany. One woman, Kimia, living in a guesthouse in Pakistan while awaiting resettlement, said: “I’m so sorry about those people who are injured or killed … but it’s not our fault.” These comments reflect fear and frustration, but not outright opposition to migration. 

This anti-immigrant rhetoric from migrants themselves was also scarce and raises larger questions: during migration and resettlement, how much do assimilation pressures, political leaders, or the need to align with majority opinion shape migrant perspectives? The U.S. offers a clear parallel. In recent presidential elections, especially 2024, immigrants were seen as pivotal voting blocs. Despite Donald Trump’s often hostile rhetoric and restrictive policies, many immigrants supported him. They believed that siding with Trump might earn them favor or speed up pathways for long-term residents, even at the expense of more recent arrivals, rather than voting for Kamala Harris, who campaigned on a more pro-immigrant platform.

Yet this strategy I argue backfired. After Trump’s reelection, reports surfaced of immigrants and die-hard Trump towns regretting their votes, recognizing that aligning with the majority did not deliver the protections or advantages they had hoped for. 

This dynamic highlights the precarious balance immigrants navigate between gratitude for resettlement, pressure to assimilate, and the risks of political alignment.

What emerges from the Afghan case is a counterpoint to the U.S. example. Afghans in Germany, Pakistan, and beyond largely stood in solidarity with fellow refugees, even amid anti-immigrant rhetoric growing worldwide. Their advocacy underscores that receiving refuge does not obligate political conformity. In the U.S., by contrast, some immigrants align with the majority that ultimately failed to safeguard their interests. Together, these cases show that resettlement may grant safety, but it does not erase the complexity of political identity and retaining that connection to your homeland from far away. Solidarity, assimilation, and self-preservation all remain in tension.

An interesting detail the euronews article reported on is that the German government had to give 1,000 euros to the 81 Afghans it deported. The reason is that the courts could block the deportation if it was deemed that the people faced financial destitution upon their return. This is a laudable humanitarian measure, and it’s a surprise to me that they afforded it to criminals. Note, I’m not saying that they shouldn’t afford it; in fact, I agree, but given the political climate, one would think that the country would’ve just deported them with nothing.

A key element this story reveals, and something we overlook, is the increasing importance of the judiciary in immigration discourse. There is an interesting cause-and-effect chain to observe. In Germany and much of the West, the public is turning against benevolent and humanitarian immigration policies, giving more votes to the anti-immigration right, and there’s an increasing strain on certain countries due to the immigrant influx. This drives executives to overreach to implement stricter policies that may very well return people to places where they face human rights violations.

The courts, then, being immune to politics and pressure (ideally), can preserve certain principles. This has been the case in Germany and even in America, despite the glaring partisanship and green-lighting of the Supreme Court. The parallels to the American case are worth studying.

On multiple accounts of presidential action, the courts have stifled the agenda, allowing the Supreme Court to use its shadow docket to simply allow the president to do as he wills. From stopping the end of temporary protected status and the alien enemies act fiasco.

Social media’s role and citizen journalism were also a critical theme in the readings. And in contemporary times, we’ve seen the internet allow for grassroots everything. In Gaza, regular people were using social media to report and document everything that was happening, aiding this overseas journalism or journalism in exile that Wafa was referring to. In Ukraine, we saw this in the war crimes investigations report by Yale that was referenced in last week’s class. Grassroots activism, information sharing, and community alerts are trends that we see from Algeria (Arab Spring) to Kenya(crowdsourced crisis mapping).

The role of Pakistan and Iran in Germany’s asylum program reveals a similar trend everywhere in how neighboring countries bear the brunt of a refugee crisis, even as countries farther away make promises of aid. Germany has had 10s and 100s of thousands of people in Pakistan. Why did Pakistan agree to take on this burden? Why must it now deal with a population that it definitely has less capacity than Germany to integrate in the face of these cancellations?

In Sudan, we saw this too. The international community funds neighbors like Chad, Egypt, and Ethiopia to bear the brunt of supporting and integrating refugees. These countries suffer strain with insufficient resources on top of their already struggling populations.