On #WorldRefugeeDay I'd like to remember and thank every displaced man, woman and child I've interviewed. They did not owe me their stories, but gave them freely. I will never stop being grateful for and honored by their trust in me. I only wish I had more to give in return.
The best I could do for these people was try my hardest to share their stories with the world and I will continue to do so. In that spirit, here's a collection of my refugee pieces from over the years:
This is my @villagevoice piece from last year on asylum seekers in NYC. One gay man from Burkina Faso was beaten almost to death in his country. When I met him, he was living in terror of being deported under the Trump administration. villagevoice.com/2017/05/09/ref…
My 2016 @ForeignPolicy story on Syrian refugee children in Lebanon attempting suicide due to the terrible conditions here. One 12-year-old girl swallowed rat poison and almost died because she said she didn't want to be a burden on her mother anymore. foreignpolicy.com/2016/06/29/syr…
I wrote this piece for @VICE in 2015 about Syrian families in Lebanon whose camp was bulldozed by the police while they were sleeping in it. They ended up in a tannery where they were breathing in toxic chemicals. Two kids died after my story was published vice.com/en_us/article/…
My 2013 @Atlantic piece on Syrian refugee child brides. One 14-year-old I met was marrying a 45-year-old Lebanese man because her family couldn't afford to feed her and wanted to protect her from being raped, as so many Syrian women have been. theatlantic.com/international/…
In 2015, I wrote this @foreignpolicy piece about refugee smugglers based out of the Palestinian camp of Ain al-Hilweh in Lebanon. One Syrian Palestinian woman lost her entire family when their boat capsized on the way to Europe. foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/05/the…
My @NBCNews piece from last year on ISIS's indoctrination of young boys in Iraq. "I see the men who taught us in school in my dreams," one boy told me, with tears in his eyes. "I can see their beards and their eyes. Everything about them was frightening." nbcnews.com/storyline/isis…
My first refugee story was in @ForeignPolicy, about Syrian Palestinians fleeing to Lebanon. One Palestinian girl supporting her siblings let a Syrian family stay in her tiny house. "If we don’t take care of each other, who will take care of us?" she said. foreignpolicy.com/2013/01/09/syr…
I understand that so much suffering is overwhelming to take in, so I'll just end with this video of Syrian girls dancing in Lebanon, because amid the pain and poverty, there have always been brief, blinding flashes of joy and humor that leave me breathless. #WorldRefugeeDay
