Modern Grimm ~ The Refugee Stories of Hope

​ Ahmed Hussen came to Canada from Somalia as a refugee. Now he's the new minister of immigration. Along with thousands of compatriots, Ahmed Hussen fled war-ravaged Somalia for a better life in Canada. Hussen's journey took him from Mogadishu to Toronto and then on to Ottawa's Parliament Hill, where the former Somali refugee was named this week as the country's newest minister of immigration in a reshuffle of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Cabinet. It was a fast political rise for the rookie politician, and will put Hussen, who arrived in Canada in 1993 as a 16-year-old, in charge of the complex portfolio that oversees who is welcomed into the country. Friends say the lawyer and social activist will be able to draw from personal experience in his new role. Mahamad Accord, who has known Hussen for years through his work with the Canadian Somali Congress, says his friend has not forgotten his modest roots despite walking Canada's corridors of power. "He did

FROM THE FIELD East Africa hunger, famine: Facts, FAQs, and how to help GALLERY When Mushtar was rushed to a clinic, she was underweight and malnourished. She received emergency medication and high energy biscuits —– cookies that are fortified with protein, vitamins, and minerals — that. It saved her life. World Vision and the World Food Program provide children and mothers with monthly rations and ready- to- use supplementary foods to help malnourished children gain weight and become healthy. (©2017 World Vision/photo by Mark Nonkes) GALLERY “I dream of eating rice,” says 5-year-old Frank. Frank’s family has only eaten corn porridge for several months. They’ve already cut out, and due to food shortages, they skip breakfast. Frank’s family farmsare farmers in northern Kenya. They used to have 50 goats, but they all died due to the drought. The crops they planted withered and died too, failing to produce a harvest. The family earns a little money by cutting and bundling dry grass to sel

As soon as you set foot in any of the refugee camps along the South Sudan border in Uganda, a vast human suffering becomes easily apparent. We explored some of the personal stories of people fleeing this young country's conflict in a story over at Goats and Soda, but it's hard to express the scale of this conflict, which has killed more than 50,000 people since the end of 2013. What began as a dispute between the president and vice president has turned into a brutal civil war fueled by ethnic tensions. The U.N. has been using alarming superlatives to describe it. It has said sexual violence in the conflict has reached "epic proportions," that the humanitarian needs have reached "unprecedented levels." Last month, it warned that the conflict in South Sudan has precipitated the "world's fastest growing" refugee crisis. On Tuesday alone, 3,000 people streamed across the border into Uganda, which already hosts at least 800,000 refugees. Two visuals

Memories of WWII refugees live on in Tanzania ARUSHA – On the fringes of a small Tanzanian village called Tengeru lie buried 150 Polish war refugees, who did their best to make a life there. The Third Reich invaded Polish territory on September 1, 1939 without declaration. It was the beginning of the Second World War. The Molotov Pact , signed one week before the invasion of Poland, partitioned more than half of Polish territory to the Soviet Union, beginning a campaign of terror against the civilian population. Deportation to Siberia began on February 10, 1940 following purges of the Polish civil elite. When German armies invaded in 1942, the Polish government sided with the USSR in exchange for the release of Polish deportees, as well as 47 000 exiles. Many were sent to United Kingdom colonies – of those, about 18 000 Poles were sent on to refugee camps in East Africa. There were six camps in Tanzania, the largest of which was in the village Tengeru, with 5 000 refugees. The Polish “

Canadian General Romeo Dallaire alleged that the RPF's Tutsi Commander Paul Kagame had allowed the genocide to continue longer than it needed to. Picture: AP Photo/athuman zuberi Exactly twenty years ago I sat in an Ottawa cafe with Canadian General Romeo Dallaire, the former Commander of the UN Peacekeeping operation in Rwanda at the time of the genocide. Six years after his utterly failed mission, Dallaire was suffering from post-traumatic stress, but I was told he had something very important to tell me. Nothing could have prepared me for what I was to hear, especially considering I had just visited Rwanda, its genocide memorials, and sat taking notes around a dinner table with the Rwandan cabinet. Dallaire did say that he didn’t expect me to believe what he was saying under the circumstances, but that it was the truth, and one day I would realise the veracity of what he was telling me. It has taken me twenty years to process that conversation and to have the courage to write

Skulls of victims of the Ntarama massacre during the 1994 genocide are lined in the Genocide Memorial Site church of Ntarama, in Nyamata 27 February 2004. In the Bugesera province, where the small town of Nyamata is located, the 1994 Rwandan genocide was particularly brutal. Among the 59.000 Tutsis who lived in the province, 50.000 were killed during the genocide, and among them 10.000 were slain in the church. AFP PHOTO/GIANLUIGI GUERCIA (Photo credit should read GIANLUIGI GUERCIA/AFP/Getty Images) Credit: GIANLUIGI GUERCIA It started with one murder. It ended with some 800,000. The Rwandan genocide, which began 20 years ago this week, was one of the worst atrocities in living memory. It took just 100 days to massacre as much as 20 percent of the country's population, decimate its infrastructure and sow the seeds of regional conflicts still to come.  Here are 20 photos that tell the story of the events of April to July 1994. Because some things there are no words to des