UNHCR's Guterres thanks Kuwaiti Emir for US$110 million donation

The Anguish of Syria's Refugees Enters a Fifth Year

These are the faces of Syrian refugees - more than 3.8 million in neighbouring countries alone - who fled their homes to escape a war that's unleashed one of the worst humanitarian crises of our time. They imagined their exile might last weeks or months. Now the conflict is raging into a fifth year.

Many refugees reached safety after treacherous journeys by car, bus or a motorcycle. Others walked across deserts and rivers, or climbed over mountains to escape persecution and death in Syria.

They made their homes in informal settlements across Lebanon, in organized camps in Turkey and Jordan, and in unfinished buildings and other insecure dwellings around Beirut, Amman and Istanbul, stretching their hosts' resources, and hospitality, to the limit.

UNHCR has appealed for billions of dollars to help bring aid to Syria's refugees. With partners, the refugee agency is providing shelter, medical care, food and education. But what the refugees need most is an end to the devastating conflict, so they can regain hope of returning to Syria and rebuilding their broken homeland.

From Paris With Love, Toys for Syrian Children

Every year, the Quai Branly Museum in Paris organizes a collection of toys from schoolchildren in Paris and, with a little help from UNHCR and other key partners, sends them to refugee children who have lost so much.

The beneficiaries this year were scores of Syrian children living in two camps in Turkey, one of the major host countries for the more than 1.4 million Syrians who have fled their country with or without their families. Most of these traumatized young people have lost their own belongings in the rubble of Syria.

Last week, staff from the museum, UNHCR and the Fédération des Associations d'Anciens du Scoutisme gathered up the toys and packed them into 60 boxes. They were then flown to Turkey by Aviation Sans Frontières (Aviation without Borders) and taken to the kindergarten and nursery schools in Nizip-1 and Nizip-2 camps near the city of Gaziantep.

A gift from more fortunate children in the French capital, the toys brought a ray of sunshine into the lives of some young Syrian refugees and reminded them that their peers in the outside world do care.

These images of the toy distribution were taken by photographer Aytac Akad and UNHCR's Selin Unal.

2015 UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award

UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres presents the Nansen medal to Afghan refugee, Aqeela Asifi in Geneva, Switzerland.

Asifi, 49, has dedicated her life to bringing education to refugee girls in Pakistan. Despite minimal resources and significant cultural challenges, Asifi - a former teacher who fled from Kabul with her family in 1992 - has guided over a thousand refugee girls through primary education in the Kot Chandana refugee village in Mianwali, Pakistan.

Before she arrived, strict cultural traditions kept most girls at home. But she was determined to give these girls a chance and began teaching just a handful of pupils in a makeshift school tent.

UNHCR's Nansen Refugee Award honours extraordinary service to the forcibly displaced, and names Eleanor Roosevelt, Graça Machel and Luciano Pavarotti among its laureates. Speakers and performers at today's award ceremony include UNHCR Honorary Lifetime Goodwill Ambassador Barbara Hendricks, UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Ger Duany, Unicef Goodwill Ambassador and singer Angelique Kidjo and visual artist Cedric Cassimo.

Afghanistan is the largest, most protracted refugee crisis in the world. Over 2.6 million Afghans currently live in exile and over half of them are children.