Thursday, March 14, 2013

Refugee Camps & Osborne's Refuge


 From yesterday's BBC article "Prince Charles 'heartbroken' by plight of Syrian refugees:"
The Prince of Wales says the plight of Syrian refugees is "heartbreaking", while on a tour of a camp in Jordan... More than a million Syrians have now been registered by the UN as refugees in countries including Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt... The King Abdullah camp, near Jordan's northern border with Syria, is one of the smaller camps in the country. It is run by the UN, Unicef and Save the Children. The BBC's Wyre Davis, who is at the camp, said thousands of people were crossing the border into Jordan every night and half of them were thought to be children... The royal couple's visit comes as Save the Children warns that some two million children are in need of help in Syria. Their report says increasing numbers are being recruited as guards, informers, fighters and, in some cases, human shields, for both sides involved in the conflict... The conflict has left more than 70,000 people dead and two million internally displaced, of a pre-conflict population of 20.7 million.
For a novel set in a refugee camp, try Refuge by N.G. Osborne:
On a dusty, sweltering night, Noor Khan, a beautiful, headstrong Afghan refugee, comes face-to-face with Charlie Matthews, a brash, young American aid worker. To Noor's fury, Charlie breaks every cultural norm and pursues her. She wants nothing to do with him: her sole aim in life is to earn an overseas scholarship so she can escape the miseries of the refugee camps.

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