© UNHCR/M.MurphyDisplaced people in Khaung Doke Khar have been moved out of tents to nearby government shelters outside Sittwe, Rakhine stateYANGON, Myanmar  (UNHCR) – As Cyclone Mahasen approaches the coasts of Myanmar and Bangladesh, more than 35,000 internally displaced people in Myanmar's Rakhine state have been moved to safer locations under a government evacuation plan. Many more have moved spontaneously into local communities to avoid the brunt of the storm, which is expected to hit land on Thursday night.

Rakhine state is home to up to 140,000 people who were displaced in inter-communal violence last year. The UN estimates that some 70,000 of them in and around Sittwe, Pauktaw and Myebon are especially vulnerable to the cyclone's impact as they are encamped near the coast, in low-lying areas or in flimsy makeshift shelters.

Emergency evacuation started on Monday, led by the Rakhine state government. More than 35,000 displaced people had been moved to public buildings, temporary shelters or higher ground by Wednesday. The relocations continued into Thursday amid heavy rains and strong winds.

"The authorities have assured us that everyone at risk will be relocated and assisted without discrimination," said Hans ten Feld, UNHCR's representative in Myanmar. "UNHCR and other agencies have been monitoring the process to ensure that there is consultation, that vulnerable individuals are prioritized, that families are not separated in the process, that rights are respected."

UNHCR teams on the ground are also helping to ease the concerns of some IDPs who refuse to move to government-designated relocation sites. In rural Sittwe, displaced people in Hmanzi Junction decided on Thursday that they wanted to move after all, prompting aid workers to seek trucks to transport them to nearby schools. The authorities have given verbal assurances that they will be able to return to Hmanzi Junction after the storm passes.

Another group of 7,000 displaced people in Nget Chaung in Pauktaw township declined to move to a government site and preferred to move elsewhere by boat. After a tragic accident on Monday night in which more than 50 people are still missing, the authorities started providing boats and escorts to the group's alternative location. This continued until the waters became too rough to navigate. The remaining 1,000 people are now moving to a nearby mosque, which risks overcrowding.

UNHCR has deployed a senior shelter coordinator to help assess the relocation sites. Together with other experts, he is advising the government on whether the shelters, facilities and services are adequate for the large numbers of evacuees.

"The government and humanitarian community are pulling all the stops to relocate as many people as possible before the storm," said ten Feld. "With the storm expected later today, we will need to shift the focus quickly to relief and recovery work."

UNHCR has mobilized its stocks of tents, plastic sheets and other relief items to support any post-cyclone needs among the displaced population in Rakhine state.

Meanwhile, the Bangladesh government has ordered the evacuation of 1 million people from townships that are at risk in the south. There are an estimated 230,000 people of concern to UNHCR in that area, including 30,000 Rohingya refugees in two camps, and more than 200,000 undocumented Rohingya from Rakhine state. UNHCR has made preparations in the refugee camps, identifying buildings that can serve as shelters and pre-positioning relief supplies. The government has given assurances that assistance will be provided to all cyclone-affected people without discrimination.

© UNHCR/G.BealsGoodwill Ambassador Jesús Vázquez makes some new young Syrian friends at a registration centre in the Jordanian capital, AmmanZA'ATRI REFUGEE CAMP, Jordan  (UNHCR)- Popular Spanish TV presenter Jesús Vázquez visited Jordan this week to highlight the plight of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees, particularly the children, and to help raise urgently-needed funds for UNHCR's Syria crisis operation.

"I'm here to listen to what you have to say so that I can help raise awareness in my country about your needs," the UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador told refugees on Tuesday in Za'atri camp, which is home to more than 100,000 people.

"Even though the people of Spain are suffering from an economic crisis, they understand the drastic conditions you have been forced to endure," he said. "In Spain we have a crisis. Here the definition of crisis is life and death."

During a two-day trip to Jordan, Vázquez also visited the Jordanian capital Amman, where he met with urban refugees and heard about the particular challenges they face. In Za'atri camp, which continues to grow, he met refugee families and aid workers in the camp's medical sector, spoke with new arrivals and talked with UNHCR staff about their vital work.

"I'm particularly concerned about the children, who have lost two years of their lives and suffered endless trauma," Vázquez said. "They've seen the worst that humanity has to offer. We need to show them the best we have to offer."

Vázquez said his visit would help generate specific ideas for fund-raising for UNHCR projects in Za'atri and urban areas. On returning to Spain, he will participate in television and radio programmes to call for solidarity and funds.

The popular Spaniard also praised the Jordanian government and people for hosting so many Syrians. "By keeping the borders open and extending a helping hand to Syrian refugees they have literally saved their lives," he said.

Since the conflict erupted in Syria in March 2011, more than 1.4 million Syrians have fled to countries in the region. Jordan has accepted over 460,000 of them – a staggering amount which is straining the country's resources.

The majority of the refugees are women and children. UNHCR is seeking millions of dollars in funding to provide protection and to meet their basic needs, including shelter, water, health care and education. The appeal has been about 50 per cent funded.

Vázquez has been working with UNHCR since 2006, using his media access and public influence to raise funds and awareness in the Spanish-speaking world about the suffering and needs of refugees. He has met refugees in Kenya and Tunisia as well as internally displaced populations in Colombia.

This is not his first visit to Jordan. In 2008, the year he was appointed as a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, he participated in a concert held in ancient Petra in memory of Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti. This raised funds for Afghan refugee returnees.

By Greg Beals in Za'atri Refugee Camp, Jordan

GENDRASSA, South Sudan, (UNHCR) – Takwa Baderdin is a shy 16-year-old girl who avoids making eye contact with people she does not know, but at the mention of her recent academic success her downcast eyes light up with pride.

Like other children in South Sudan, Takwa was required to sit exams to complete her primary education. But unlike the majority of those children, Takwa and her family have faced life-changing challenges, fleeing their home in Sudan and restarting their lives in a refugee camp.

Undaunted, Takwa went on to achieve the fourth highest exam results in South Sudan's Upper Nile state. And she was not the only refugee to do well. Twenty-seven other children in the Gendrassa camp also passed the exam.

"I still cannot believe it," Takwa says as she works at her domestic chores in the refugee camp that has been her family's home since July 2012.

Her mother also cannot conceal her delight at her daughter's achievement. "I have always taught my children, especially my daughters, never to fear education but to embrace it," says Nawal Umer, a kindergarten teacher. The value the family places on learning has allowed Takwa and her sisters to attend classes at an age when most of their peers have married and become mothers.

"I will support and defend my children's right to education with every fibre of my being, especially that of my daughters," says Umer. "Now we need to ensure that Takwa can attend secondary school."

Umer and her children were forced to flee their home in Sudan's Blue Nile state in March 2011 when they became trapped in a conflict between the Sudanese armed forces and the Sudanese People's Liberation Army-North. The family first made their way to Ethiopia and then walked to South Sudan, where they were reunited with Takwa's father. He had become separated from his family in the fighting and was living in another refugee camp.

After enrolling in one of the camp's schools, Takwa confronted a significant challenge. Classes in South Sudan are taught in English, a language then unfamiliar to the Arabic-speaking teen. It will be an opportunity to learn a new language, she told herself.

With dreams of becoming a broadcast journalist – a career choice reluctantly supported by her mother – Takwa must now find a means of continuing her education. Resources limit the education available in refugee camps to primary school. Secondary school places are available in the local community, but many classes are filled to capacity.

As an interim measure, UNHCR is implementing community-based informal classes for those refugee children who have passed their primary school exams.

"We want to ensure that students with such potential do not get sidetracked by issues they should not be focusing on, such as early marriage," says Jockshan Foryoh, an education officer with the Refugee Agency. "We are encouraging primary school leavers to enrol and participate in informal education classes where they are productively engaged in ongoing learning."

UNHCR and partner agencies have also begun addressing the gaps that need to be resolved before secondary education can begin in Upper Nile's refugee camps. These include a lack of qualified teachers as well as shortages of text and exercise books and structures in which to locate the schools.

By Pumla Rulashe in Gendrassa, South Sudan

© UNHCR/P.RulasheAida (right) and her grandmother, who thinks she should get married soonYUSUF BATIL REFUGEE CAMP, South Sudan, (UNHCR) – Just over a year ago, Aida Budjut's determination to continue with her education ran into stiff opposition from her grandmother, who believed that the 16-year-old should get married and bear children.

But Aida, a refugee from Sudan, would not be swayed and with the support of a powerful and progressive ally – her father – she is winning the argument. The teenager recently started a six-month course that prepares non-English speakers to learn the language and eventually teach primary school students in English.

She was one of 400 refugees in South Sudan camps accepted for the course by the Windle Trust International, a UNHCR partner, and has also started working as a kindergarten teacher in Yusuf Batil refugee camp after completing a one-month early childhood development, or ECD, course. UNHCR places great importance on giving refugees access to education, especially for females.

But although Aida is earning the equivalent of GBP£160 a month to help her family, her granny, Rajab, is still not convinced. "My grandmother thought that because I had attended the course, I would be satisfied and make myself available for marriage," says Aida, "but she does not understand what it is I want."

Aida explains that she does not want to end up being trapped in an early marriage and dependent on her husband, like so many other young women she knows. To date, she has turned down three suitors. "Who will marry her if she keeps turning down marriage proposals?" her grandmother complains.

It's a refrain that the young woman had become used to after months alone with 60-year-old Rajab in Yusuf Batil camp. The whole family had fled their village in Sudan's Blue Nile state in late 2011 after it became a target in conflict between the Sudanese armed forces and the Sudan People's Liberation Army-North.

Aida and Rajab became separated from the rest of the family and made their way to South Sudan and Yusuf Batil alone. Worried about how she was going to provide for her grandchild, Rajab sincerely believed that only marriage would provide the girl with financial security.

To escape her grandmother's nagging, Aida took to exploring the camp of almost 38,000 people and looking for something to do or study. Then one day her parents and siblings showed up in the camp and things began to change. "I was so happy to see my parents, not only because they were alive," she says, "but also because my father disagreed with my grandmother's insistence that I marry."

Not long after the family reunion, Aida was walking to the market in Yusuf Batil when she came across what looked like a group of people studying in one of the camp schools. On closer inspection, she realized that they were people of her age who were taking part in a workshop for kindergarten teachers.

"I would not leave the school compound until the trainer told me to join the group because I was distracting the class," she recalls. "It was like being back in school. I was so excited," she added of the month-long ECD course.

Meanwhile, she is enjoying the UNHCR-funded Windle Trust teacher training course and is confident of doing well. Like most of the other students on the course, she grew up studying in Arabic, but must now master English, the main language of study in South Sudan.

"It may not be a continuation of my secondary schooling in the conventional sense," Aida says, "but it is definitely contributing to my lifelong goal of learning English and becoming a teacher." The students, all non-English speakers, are taught to use visual, audio and body language techniques of instruction.

"Any non-English speaker can be trained to, by the end of the programme, teach English at, in this case, primary school level," explains Windle Trust's Deborah Namukwaya, who manages the UNHCR-supported teacher-training programme in refugee camps around Upper Nile state's Maban County.

On completion of the training programme, new teachers like Budjut will teach classes of 40 to 50 schoolchildren. At the end of 2012, about 20,000 children were enrolled in schools in Maban County's four refugee camps, which together host some 116,000 refugees. A fifth camp has just been opened.

Meanwhile, Rajab is no longer insisting that Aida get married immediately, but she thinks she should at least find a husband before she turns 20.

By Pumla Rulashe in Yusuf Batil Refugee Camp, South Sudan

© UNHCR/B.NtwariTuareg nomads from Mali head eastwards on their camels during the livestock drive in NigerINTIKANE, Niger, (UNHCR) – The long column of animals – flanked by men sitting high in the saddle – headed eastwards at a steady pace, raising clouds of dust on the trek towards new pastures.

It may sound like a scene from a Western, but this drama was being played out thousands of miles away and across an ocean in the West African nation of Niger. The cast includes 800 animals, ethnic Tuareg nomads from Mali and the UN refugee agency.

In late April, the caravan of camels, cattle, donkeys, goats, sheep and three horses left the refugee settlement at Agando, about six miles from the border with Mali, and began the three-day trek to Intikane, a vast area where the Tuaregs will be able to live in an open area and lead their traditional nomadic lifestyle in safety.

All of the 8,000 refugees at Agando and nearby Chinourawen village fled to western Niger with their animals to escape the fighting that erupted in northern Mali early last year or because of continued insecurity or fear of reprisals since January this year, when a French-led counter-attack pushed back rebel forces.

The Niger government's decision to move the Tuaregs to Intikane was based on security grounds: Agando is located just six miles from the border in an area that remains unstable. It was also a way of letting them lead a more normal life.

"Helping refugees to move their animals will allow them to maintain their livelihoods and to continue living as pastoralists and nomads rather than ending up in a refugee camp dwellers and dependent on aid," noted Karl Steinacker, UNHCR 's representative in Niger.

The Tuaregs were involved in the relocation process from the start. "We held several meetings and we worked out an itinerary," said Mouhamoud Abdoulaye Al Kan Afi. "We were able to go and see Intikane. It is suitable for us and for our animals," added the respected refugee elder, who rode his horse like a young man and was one of the chief herdsmen.

UNHCR brought in local partner, Akarass, to help organize the caravan, which was a major logistical operation. "We worked on every detail: there were water points along the way and food for the herdsmen," said the NGO's Oumarou Danni Saadou, adding that gendarmes on camel-back provided security.

The health of the animals was looked after by a vet, and on arrival at Intikane all the animals were given vaccinations to prevent the spread of disease among livestock owned by the local community.

The two-mile-long train of animals arrived in Intikane to a warm reception from the local community. "The refugees and their animals are welcome. What happened to them could happen to anyone," said the village headman, Alghadawi Ilhouda. "We have to support them by sharing our water and pasture," he added in an arid area of scrub and sand.

Some of the Malian herders were delighted to discover that there was a well at Intikane, operated by powerful pumps and generators that had been rehabilitated by UNHCR. "This is simply like rain," said one refugee, Omar Mouhamadou. The 700-metre-deep well also benefits the local community in this part of Niger's Tahoua region, where the Sahel region meets the Sahara.

The Niger government, with help from UNHCR, plans to bring other communities of refugees to safer pastures deeper inside the country over the coming weeks. But unlike the animals and their drovers, most of the refugees will make the journey on convoys prepared by UNHCR's partner, the International Organization for Migration.

UNHCR is protecting and assisting some 50,000 Malian refugees in Niger. They are among more than 175,000 Malian refugees in surrounding countries, including Burkina Faso and Mauritania.

By Bernard Ntwari in Intikane, Niger

©UNHCR/P.RulasheHawa and her nine-year-old daughter, Asha, wait patiently as the relocation of all refugees from flood-prone Jamam site gets under wayMABAN, South Sudan, (UNHCR) – The UN refugee agency has this week begun the relocation of almost 20,000 Sudanese refugees from the flood-prone Jamam transit site in South Sudan's Upper Nile state to a new camp on higher ground.

The operation began on Monday and UNHCR hopes to complete the move to Kaya, which like Jamam is located in Upper Nile's Maban County, before the end of June and the advent of the rainy season, when movement will be difficult.

"UNHCR, together with partner humanitarian agencies, will transport an average of 450 refugees each day, with the most recent arrivals being among the first to make the journey," the agency said in a press release, adding that between 40 and 50 refugees have been arriving in Maban County daily over the past four months.

The refugees, mainly women, children and a growing number of older people, have escaped conflict and hardship in Sudan's Blue Nile state, but the influx is likely to slow when the rains come.

About 300 people joined Monday's first convoy to Kaya, which is also more suitable because it is built on sandy soil that allows for water drainage. The crowd waiting to board buses included Hawa Aman, a widow, and her nine-year-old daughter, Asha.

They waited quietly, traumatised by the memory of an air strike against their village, Gisi, in March and their subsequent flight and arduous journey to South Sudan. She later learned that two of her eight children were killed in the attack and two others are safe with relatives in another camp.

"All I could think of was getting as far away from Gisi as possible," she recalled. "I did not even have the time to get water or food. We just started walking." But her youngest children soon began to struggle and three of them died in the forest.

"I prayed, 'God, give me the strength to take the remaining' [three] children to a safe place,' and he did," Hawa told UNHCR, adding that they ran into UNHCR staff not long after entering South Sudan at the New Guffa entry point. Like other new arrivals, they were given water and food before being taken to Jamam.

And now, Hawa and her three surviving children have been relocated to their new home at Kaya, the fifth refugee camp to be opened by UNHCR in Maban. All families will be given a plot of land to build their home.

Adan Ilmi, UNHCR's senior operations coordinator in the area, said all new arrivals at Jamam would be taken directly to Kaya refugee camp, "where humanitarian assistance ranging from the provision of food and non-food items like tents, shelter materials, jerry cans, buckets, mosquito nets, sleeping mats and kitchen sets, health services, water and sanitation facilities await them."

The other benefits of Kaya include access to education for children, while there is also sufficient forest to provide shade and firewood for cooking. There are currently water and sanitation facilities for up to 6,000 people and extra water is being trucked in while additional facilities are being installed. The camp has the potential to shelter up to 35,000 people.

Hawa, meanwhile, is still struggling to come to terms with the loss of her children and was receiving trauma counseling in Jamam. But she said she was "eternally grateful" to UNHCR for saving her and her surviving children. "I was just counting the days before the next one of my children fell down never to rise again," she said.

She has been encouraged to interact and engage socially as much as possible with other women in the new camp. "I know I must, because if I don't I will lose my mind," she said. "It may not be now or tomorrow, but one day I will definitely be able to smile and laugh again like all these people around me."

By Pumla Rulashe in Jamam, South Sudan