Latest News - Syria Emergency

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.

Angelina Jolie visits Syrian and Iraqi refugees in the Middle East

In her new role as UNHCR Special Envoy, Angelina Jolie has made five trips to visit refugees so far this year. She travelled to Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey in September 2012 to meet some of the tens of thousands of Syrians who have fled conflict in their homeland and sought shelter in neighbouring countries. Jolie wrapped up her Middle East visit in Iraq, where she met Syrian refugees in the north as well as internally displaced Iraqis and refugee returnees to Baghdad.

The following unpublished photos were taken during her visit to the Middle East and show her meeting with Syrian and Iraqi refugees.