Impact of the late Syrian crisis on infectious diseases in Lebanon: a systematic review.

ABSTRACT The ongoing displacement of Venezuelans across Latin America and the Caribbean, the Syrian refugee crisis and the war in Ukraine have all contributed to shifting narratives and new forms of media representation that continued into 2025. Although a small nation, Guyana has seen a notable increase in cross-border migration, specifically from neighbouring Venezuela. With thousands of Venezuelan nationals now seeking refuge or opportunity within its borders, the country finds itself grappling with how to frame these new arrivals. The Guyanese media, caught between regional humanitarian discourse and domestic anxieties, plays a powerful role in shaping public perceptions and national responses. Migrant voices are also critical to policy formulation but are often silent. A framing analysis of headlines elevated by Guyana’s four dailies, Guyana Chronicle, Stabroek News, Kaieteur News, and the Guyana Times, between January 2021 and December 2024 revealed the salience of Threat, Access, Inclusion, Precarity/Vulnerability and Transparency within news narratives that pertain to Venezuelan migrants. As part of the English-speaking Guyanese landscape, the language barrier poses the greatest challenge for migrants. Stories of adaptation and allyship illustrate their resilience and provide lessons for national policy to integrate migrants into Guyana’s growing economy.

The full-scale invasion of Ukraine has generated the largest refugee crisis in Europe since the Second World War, exposing civilians to trauma, displacement, and prolonged uncertainty. Refugees face stressors across multiple ecological levels, making Bronfenbrenner's model a suitable framework for understanding mental health determinants. This study examined multilevel predictors of psychological distress among Ukrainian war refugees in Europe. A cross-sectional study was conducted in 2025 across eight European countries. A total of 1,622 adult refugees completed standardized questionnaires. Psychological distress was assessed with the Refugee Health Screener-15 (RHS-15), and cultural trauma symptoms with the Cultural Symptoms of Trauma Scale (CSTS). Sociodemographic, relational, economic, institutional, cultural, and temporal variables were organised within Bronfenbrenner's ecological model. Group comparisons were conducted using non-parametric tests, and predictors of distress were identified through logistic regression. Higher distress was associated with poorer self-rated health, weaker family and social relationships, unemployment, economic strain, and contact with family in war-affected areas. The strongest predictors were macrosystem factors, including emotional, cognitive, existential, and agency-related trauma symptoms (OR 1.40-2.78). Protective factors included better health, stronger family relationships, employment, and favourable economic conditions. Refugees who left Ukraine later in the conflict showed lower distress risk. Mental health outcomes among Ukrainian refugees reflect interactions across ecological levels. Interventions should integrate individual, relational, community, economic, and culturally informed components to address the multifaceted nature of refugee distress.

ABSTRACT The EU relies on bonds of loyalty that create a political community among member states and citizens. The relevance of the social dimension for both polity contestation and polity maintenance has, however, been neglected. We fill this gap by evaluating to what extent the EU’s (social) policy responses to crises contributed to contain Euroscepticism – or failed to do so. We examine how EU polity challengers (radical parties both on the right and the left) have capitalised on the weakness of the EU’s social dimension to discursively oppose the polity in the euro, refugee, COVID-19 and Ukraine crises. We argue that polity contestation goes beyond challengers’ preoccupation with shrinking national sovereignty and includes compelling criticism of the EU as an ‘uncaring’ actor. Thus, EU polity maintenance hinges on the ability of EU elites to put forth a positive vision of bonding and offer increased social security for citizens.

This review explores the challenges encountered by transnational families in Europe amidst crises like forced migration, the refugee crisis, political unrest, war, and the COVID-19 pandemic, emphasising issues of discrimination, social protection, and coping strategies. The study analyses literature from 2011 to 2023, focusing on 52 peer-reviewed articles in English from SCOPUS and Web of Science databases. While social protection measures exist, they are often insufficient or inaccessible, leading families to rely on informal support networks and coping methods like community assistance and legal aid. The review underscores the necessity for more inclusive policies that address the specific hurdles, advocating for reforms to curb discrimination, fortify social protection, and bolster support frameworks.

BackgroundAs the global refugee crisis escalates, conflict continues to traumatize and displace an increasing number of children, exposing them to considerable psychological challenges. Although studies have found links in psychological distress among native-born, non-refugee siblings and other refugee family dyads, none have examined possible correlations among adolescent refugee siblings.MethodsWe conducted a prospective, longitudinal analysis of Syrian refugee youth anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)-like symptoms. Data was collected within one month of arrival to the U.S. and two years later. Correlation analyses of sibling dyads were performed, controlling for trauma exposure, to determine the independent influence of sibling symptom severity on mental health outcomes.ResultsUpon resettlement, anxiety symptoms significantly predicted sibling anxiety (b = 1.47, p < 0.001), though no association emerged between sibling PTSD symptoms. Two years post-resettlement, neither PTSD nor anxiety symptom severity correlated among siblings.ConclusionCoupling of anxiety in the immediate aftermath of forced migration may be more likely between siblings, whereas later anxiety may be more related to independent life and resettlement factors. Similarity in post-resettlement anxiety symptoms among siblings underscores shared experiences and the need for family-based interventions.

ABSTRACT Theoretically framed by Critical Refugee Studies (Espiritu, 2014; Espiritu etal. 2022) that critiques simplified, patronizing, and othering portraits of refugees and encourages historicizing and politicizing analysis of refugee discourses, we examine re/presentation of refugees in K–12 social studies standards from all 50 states and the District of Columbia in the United States. The analysis of state standards will provide spaces and opportunities to explore unanswered questions including but not limited to what sorts of curricular messages students receive from schools regarding refugees, to what extent these messages are multifaceted and critical, and whether the messages address larger structural and ideological forces behind the refugee crises or the complex personhood of refugees as subjects with agency. Implications for curriculum development and re/writing as well as future research directions in pursuit of making more humanizing, transformative, and liberatory discourses and approaches for education about refugees will be discussed.

Abstract Purpose The Syrian civil war has created a profound refugee crisis, with millions, especially children, seeking refuge in neighboring countries. These children face a high risk of malnutrition, a critical public health issue. This study aims to systematically review and synthesize the existing literature on the prevalence and types of malnutrition among Syrian refugee children in Turkey and neighboring countries. Methods This systematic review was conducted following the PRISMA 2020 guidelines. A comprehensive search of PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, TR Dizin, and the YÖK National Thesis Center databases was performed for studies published between January 2011 and August 15, 2024. Search terms included “Syrian refugee,” “child,” “malnutrition,” “stunting,” “wasting,” and “anemia.” Included studies underwent a methodological quality assessment using a modified Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS) adapted for cross-sectional studies. Results Nine studies met the inclusion criteria. The findings reveal that chronic malnutrition (stunting) and anemia are more prevalent among Syrian refugee children than acute malnutrition (wasting). Stunting prevalence in studies from Turkey ranged from 14.7% to 31.7%. Anemia was also a significant concern, with reported rates as high as 48.4%. The quality assessment showed variable quality, with most studies carrying a risk of bias in the “Comparability” domain. Malnutrition rates were generally higher among children living outside of camps. Conclusion While acute malnutrition appears to be largely controlled, chronic nutritional problems such as stunting and anemia persist as significant public health challenges for Syrian refugee children. These findings underscore the urgent need for long-term, sustainable public health interventions that focus on maternal and child health services, continuous nutritional surveillance, and targeted support programs for this vulnerable population.

Humanitarian settings face a growing healthcare workforce crisis marked by staff shortages, unsafe working conditions, and limited professional development. Despite being critical intermediaries in outbreak responses, demands on health workers come at a substantial cost to their health and wellbeing. Research on health workers responding to the Rohingya refugee crisis in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, is limited. Focussing on health systems "software" (relationships between people and structures), this study explores health workers' interactions with different levels of governance structures, including humanitarian response governance, the health sector coordination leadership team, and their affiliated NGO management structures when responding to disease outbreaks in the camps, particularly during COVID-19. Qualitative research consisted of 33 interviews and 4 data validation workshops with frontline health workers, and 13 key informant interviews with humanitarian stakeholders. Health workers' dependence on government camp authorities for their safety and public health enforcement produced complex relationships and sometimes compromised medical practices and professional support. Through the support of the health sector leadership team, infection prevention and control training was perceived as a key strength; however, health workers reported limited inclusion in decision-making and being professionally unprepared during outbreaks. These experiences compounded risks to their mental and physical health, and they reported receiving minimal organisational support. These relational and structural tensions undermined worker resilience and patient-provider trust. The findings underscore the need for outbreak preparedness and strategic reforms in humanitarian decision-making that prioritise health workers' safety, promote inclusiveness in decision-making, and embed sustained professional support in humanitarian health systems for future outbreaks.

ABSTRACT While Black Lives Matter protests continue to resonate around the world, the silence surrounding black lives lost at sea remains strikingly persistent. Two migration narratives bring drowned Sub-Saharans back from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean: the parable L’Archipel du Chien (2018) written by French novelist and film director Philippe Claudel and the feature film Atlantique (2019) directed by French-Senegalese Mati Diop. The presence of black corpses haunts the inhabitants of the island as much as the absence of bodies haunts the grieving widows of Dakar, whilst the castaways permeate both landscapes and psyches, seizing minds and elements alike. By transcending the modern binaries of individualism and communalism, mind and body, living and dead, Claudel and Diop’s otherworldly fictions blur all borders by drawing a world ‘other’: a utopian space, that is radically open, that resists the politics of closure and impossibility underpinning neoliberal democracies and racialised oppression, which currently drive border policies and makes migrants acutely vulnerable. In this space, migrant ghosts do not merely haunt; they act. I propose the term spectropolitics to describe this agency as a force of resurgence, an offensive care to the politics of death that dominates Europe’s response to the refugee crisis. This article explores how narrative practices, viewed through the lenses of ethics, political philosophy and ecocriticism, can reframe our understanding of human mobility. Specifically, I examine how resurgence from and by the Sub-Saharan revenants offers a relational ethics of care. Ultimately, I argue that the power of narrative lies in its capacity to expand our sense of the possible by actively shaping our reality, a capacity that is ethically vital when confronting the lived experiences of displacement and mourning.

The Rohingya refugee crisis presents a complex humanitarian challenge in Southeast Asia, exposing the inherent tension between state-centric nationalism and localised refugee management. This study interrogates Indonesia’s bifurcated response to the crisis by contrasting the national legal framework, exemplified by Presidential Regulation No. 125 of 2016, with Acehnese customary law as codified in the Qanun Meukuta Alam. While national policies prioritise sovereignty, security and containment, Acehnese practices emphasise justice, compassion and community solidarity, deeply rooted in Islamic and maritime traditions. Through a qualitative analysis of legal texts, historical manuscripts and field observations, this research highlights how Acehnese cosmopolitanism, forged through centuries of transregional trade, offers a more inclusive, rights-based alternative to restrictive state frameworks. The study argues that integrating such ‘local wisdom’ into Indonesia’s national policy could foster more human refugee governance. Furthermore, it explores the broader implications for regional collaboration, advocating for Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states to pivot towards community-driven support systems. Ultimately, this research underscores the transformative potential of localised hospitality in balancing the exigencies of state sovereignty with ethical responsibility.

ABSTRACT The arrival of unaccompanied Afghan minors in Sweden during the 2014–2015 European refugee crisis highlights the challenges of forced migration and conditional belonging. This article examines how participation in the Dream Orchestra, a symphonic music education initiative in Gothenburg, mediates experiences of instability and conditional belonging among young Hazara Afghan men who arrived as unaccompanied minors in 2015. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, the study explores how participants navigate fragmented migration trajectories through the need to ‘keep moving to stay’, and how collective, embodied musical practices foster affective regulation, kinship, and psychosocial resources. The analysis foregrounds music education as a form of cultural mediation through which young refugees negotiate everyday life under conditions of forced interculturality. The article contributes to debates on refugee (im)mobility, interculturality, and community music education by showing how inclusive cultural practices can support identity negotiation, emotional balance, and situated forms of social integration.

The global refugee crisis has exacerbated health disparities, particularly among middle-aged and older refugees, yet limited research exists on this vulnerable group, especially in low-income countries. This study investigates the predictors of health accessibility among middle-aged and older Afghan refugees in Pakistan in light of the social determinants of health, operationalized across four dimensions: health spending, health provider facilities, health information, and health communication. Using microdata from the 2022 Health Access and Utilization Survey ( n = 423) at the household level, the study employed descriptive statistics, chi-square test, and logistic regression to examine the association between sociodemographic factors and health accessibility. The findings revealed discrepancies in gender distribution, literacy levels, and language proficiency. Education was found to be a significant predictor of health providers and health information, while reading ability was negatively associated with health providers and communication, suggesting that basic literacy may not necessarily translate into functional health literacy. The findings underscore the need for inclusive and targeted health policies that extend beyond service provision and address both structural and communication barriers faced by aging refugees. Policy makers and humanitarian organizations should prioritize context-specific, culturally sensitive interventions to promote healthy aging outcomes among vulnerable refugees in Pakistan.

ABSTRACT Regarded as a regional educational leader in the 1990s and earlier, in the last two decades Jordan has progressively been lagging behind its regional peers to such an extent that it now scores behind most Arab States participating in international student learning assessments. This article analyses public primary teachers’ views on the reasons behind this decline. This analysis uses neo-ecological systems theory to break down the complexity of what is essentially a wicked policy problem, while treating culture as a cross-cutting influence that shapes expectations, relationships and responses across household, school and policy levels. The paper argues that system-wide factors at the household, school and national levels are the root cause of low learning outcomes among students, mediated in part by wider socio-cultural norms and attitudes, even while the relatively recent ‘shocks’ from the Syrian refugee crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic have steepened the gradient of learning decline.

India and Bangladesh share a long border (over 4096km). India and Bangladesh share a close relationship based on history, culture, and geography. In recent years, their ties have improved through cooperation in trade, connectivity, and security. However, in the context of changing global and regional realities, several issues and challenges still affect their relationship. One of the major problems is the sharing of river water, especially the Teesta River, which has not yet been resolved. Border management is another concern, including illegal migration, smuggling, and occasional clashes. There is also a trade imbalance, where Bangladesh imports more from India than it exports, creating economic concerns. Political factors and internal issues in both countries sometimes influence relations. In addition, the Rohingya refugee crisis has put pressure on Bangladesh and requires regional cooperation, including support from India. The growing influence of other global powers, especially China, in the region has also added a strategic challenge. Furthermore, both countries face climate change problems like floods and cyclones, which may increase migration and resource conflicts in the future. Although India and Bangladesh maintain friendly relations, these challenges need careful management through dialogue, mutual trust, and cooperation to ensure stable and strong relations in the changing world.

ABSTRACT This study critically examines the securitisation of migration in India through the lens of the Rohingya refugee crisis, theorising how postcolonial security apparatuses intersect with contemporary ethno-nationalist politics to produce specific forms of racialised exclusion. Moving beyond the conventional Copenhagen School frameworks, I argue that securitisation in postcolonial contexts operates through ‘institutionalized precarity’, a systematic deployment of state practices that simultaneously construct and manage threat perceptions while producing conditions of perpetual vulnerability. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and 55 in-depth interviews conducted across five sites between 2021 and 2025, this research demonstrates how securitisation functions not merely as discourse or policy, but as embodied practice that reshapes refugee subjectivities and everyday survival strategies. Findings reveal that restrictive mobility regimes, arbitrary detention, selective documentation practices, and the spectre of deportation converge to create what I conceptualise as ‘manufactured insecurity’, a deliberate production of fear that serves both governmental and political ends. This study advances securitisation theory by foregrounding the affective dimensions of security governance in the Global South, demonstrating how fear operates as a technology of exclusion that disciplines refugee populations while legitimating state violence, challenging Western-centric theoretical frameworks that inadequately capture the complexity of refugee governance in South Asia.

Scabies is one of the common infectious skin conditions globally, with a significantly high burden in hot and tropical countries, and resource-poor settings. Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar are one of the most protracted refugee crises in the world, sheltering approximately 1,143,096 refugees. While most existing literature focuses on mass drug administration (MDA) interventions or community-level estimates, the economic burden of scabies on health system is rarely studied. This is a retrospective costing study, where we used financial and epidemiological data from January 2021 to December 2024. Costing was done from the provider's perspective, focused on what International Organization for Migration (IOM) spent during the period as a health service provider. A combination of standard stepdown approach and micro-costing methods were used. Financial data were collected from the IOM health programme’s annual budget and consumption reports. The study population included all individuals who were clinically diagnosed with scabies and received care at 35 IOM-supported health facilities in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. The overall estimated financial cost for IOM’s scabies outbreak response was USD 2.12 million, with an annual average of USD 531,729. The average cost per scabies management ranged between USD 5.33 and USD 6.54. Drug costs accounted for 11.92% of the overall cost over 4 years. Of the total cost of USD 253,629.43 over 4 years, 79% was attributed to permethrin topical cream, which was used to manage an estimated 85% of the total managed cases. Scenario analyses demonstrates that the existing permethrin-based treatment preference is the most expensive treatment modality, compared with ivermectin-based treatment and mixed-treatment approaches. Although the average cost of treating scabies is relatively low, overall, the treatment cost for such a large population has a significant economic impact. This study found a substantial effect of MDA on reducing the financial burden on the healthcare system.

Abstract The Rohingya refugee crisis, a major humanitarian tragedy in contemporary global politics, has gradually precipitated major security challenges to Bangladesh and other states. This paper employs the Copenhagen School’s securitization theory to examine how securitization, especially by the Bangladeshi government and media, has framed these challenges as existential threats. It makes two basic contributions to existing literature on the Rohingya crisis. Firstly, it provides a theory-informed analysis of the security dimensions of the crisis, considering the interplay between the refugee crisis and national and regional security dynamics. Secondly, the paper explores how the refugees securitize their current plight. Empirically, the study utilizes interview data from 60 local residents, law enforcement agencies, and employees of local and international NGOs. The discussion suggests the possibilities and limitations of the securitization theory in the field of refugee or forced migration studies in the Global South.

The sexual and reproductive health (SRH) service provision in conflict-affected populations has been continually overlooked. International and local relief organizations have begun to recognize the neglect of women's SRH needs; however, SRH services and humanitarian responses remain suboptimal. Contraceptive discontinuation is a significant public health issue with considerable impact on family planning (FP) programs, as well as on women's SRH and population growth. There is scarce information regarding the dynamics of contraceptive use in refugee areas. Evidence on contraceptive use dynamics is vital, especially now, as the global refugee crisis grows. Therefore, this study aimed to examine first-year contraceptive discontinuation and associated factors among married women initiating long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARC) and short-acting contraceptives (SAC) in selected refugee populations in Ethiopia. A retrospective cohort study was conducted among 551 married women in selected refugee populations in Ethiopia. After reviewing FP registries, all eligible women who initiated a contraceptive method 12-18 months before data collection were included in the study. Through computer-assisted face-to-face interviews, data on the socio-demographic, reproductive, and contraceptive use history of women were collected. Key characteristics of SAC acceptors and LARC acceptors were compared using chi-square statistics and t-tests. A multivariable Cox proportional hazards model identified the predictors of time to contraceptive discontinuation during the first year of use. In addition, adjusted hazard ratios (aHR), 95% CI, and P-values were calculated to determine the magnitude and precision of the association. The 12-month discontinuation rate for all contraceptive methods was 41.2% (95% CI: 37.2-45.4). The discontinuation rate for SAC (44.94%) was higher than LARC (32.32%) (P ≤ 0.001). The factors associated with 12-month discontinuation include method type (aHR = 1.50;95% CI:1.06-2.12), residence (aHR = 1.83;95% CI:1.24-2.70), husband occupation (aHR = 0.49;95% CI:0.29-0.84), length of stay in the refugee camp (aHR = 0.95;95% CI:0.92-0.99), and intention to use contraceptives in the future (aHR = 0.15;95% CI:0.11-0.21). A high rate of early contraceptive discontinuation was documented among refugee women, with a higher discontinuation rate among SAC acceptors. To improve contraceptive service provision and maintain continuous use of the methods initiated, targeted interventions, such as improved counselling and promotion of long-acting contraceptive methods, especially among urban refugee women, are crucial.

It seemed as if the time for Derrida’s reflections on sovereignty, democracy and the morality behind the belief that “force ‘trumps’ law” especially as it unfolded in Rogues: Two Essays on Reason had come and passed. Delivered as two lectures in the summer of 2002, in the interval between the aftermath of 9/11 and the impending invasion of Iraq by the United States and its allies in 2003, Rogues claims for its theme, as Derrida announces in the first lecture, “democracy in America, or, more precisely, democracy and America […].”And yet, almost twenty-three years after its publication, this critical text that contains Derrida’s most intricate analysis of the enigmatic phrase ‘democracy to come’ has taken on a new significance. Pretexted on wars, refugee and border crises, the COVID-19 pandemic, terror attacks and the forceful return of the so-called “Rogue States,” democracies around the world, including most recently democracy in America, have experienced a resurgence of what Derrida in the preface of Rogues calls the “old-new enigma” of sovereignty. Furthermore, the transformation of the space of democracy itself – the public sphere – by intensifying globalization and new technologies has brought the very question of democracy back to the forefront of political and philosophical discourse.