Lost Childhood: Palestinian Child Soldiers in Yarmouk
Growing up, it appeared as if every Syrian child was being recruited for the armed forces. For those of my generation of Palestinian refugees, secondary school was a ritual of military uniforms and drill instruction organized by al-Shabiba, the youth-wing of the ruling Ba’ath Party. These...
Syria’s Yarmouk Camp Still Besieged
This past June, the United Nations removed Yarmouk refugee camp from a list of what it terms “besieged areas” in Syria. The reason for this shift, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), is due to the availability of...
PDC’s Letter to Pope Francis
Your Holiness Pope Francis, We are writing this letter to encourage you to continue speaking out about the issue of refugees from the crisis in Syria. We implore you to speak publicly on the refugee crisis during your visit to the United States, and about the...
A Refugee’s No Man’s Land
The refugee crisis in the Middle East seemed to have reached its tipping point over the past few weeks. The dramatic photos of Aylan Kurdi lying dead on a Turkish beach- a result of his family fleeing the ongoing Syrian civil war- went viral, leading...
The Secret Arms Deal Behind America’s Syria Fiasco – Aram Roston
A multimillion-dollar deal with a minuscule arms dealer led to the death of a US citizen, delays in arming Syrian rebels, and the purchase of weapons from a pro-Russia dictatorship — all for a pile of defective 30-year-old weapons. (Read More)...