Photo Galleries

Our photo library in Geneva is the world's largest collection of refugee-related photos covering nearly all of the major displacements of the last 60 years. These images provide a comprehensive portrait of the lives of refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced people and the stateless in all corners of the globe, as well as the work of thousands of UN staff who have helped them. Most photos are showcased here and on Flickr. We offer the use of our photos free to the media - please just remember to credit us!

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Erbil’s Children: Syrian Refugees in Urban Iraq

Added 17 May 2013

Some of the most vulnerable Syrian refugees are children who have sought shelter in urban areas with their families. Unlike those in camps, refugees living in towns and cities in countries like Iraq, Turkey and Jordan often find it difficult to gain access to aid and protection. In a refugee camp, it is easier for humanitarian aid organizations such as UNHCR to provide shelter and regular assistance, including food, health care and education. Finding refugees in urban areas, let alone helping them, is no easy task.

In Iraq, about 100,000 of the 143,000 Syrian refugees are believed to be living in urban areas – some 40 per cent of them are children aged under 18 years. The following photographs, taken in the northern city of Erbil by Brian Sokol, give a glimpse into the lives of some of these young urban refugees. They show the harshness of daily life as well as the resilience, adaptability and spirit of young people whose lives have been overturned in the past two years.

Life is difficult in Erbil, capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The cost of living is high and it is difficult to find work. The refugees must also spend a large part of their limited resources on rent. UNHCR and its partners, including the Kurdish Regional Government, struggle to help the needy.

©UNHCR/B.Sokol

Relocation from the Border Country of Burkina Faso

Added 02 May 2013

In Burkina Faso, the UN refugee agency has been working with partner organizations and the government to move thousands of Malian refugee families away from border sites like Damba to a safer camp some 100 kilometres to the south. Working under hot and harsh conditions, the aid workers had to dismantle shelters and help people load their belongings onto trucks for the journey. The new site at Mentao is also much easier to access with emergency assistance, including shelter, food, health care and education.

©UNHCR/B.Sokol

The Long Road Home: A Family’s Return to Timbuktu

Added 27 Mar 2013

War came to Timbuktu last April, when ethnic Tuareg rebels seized the ancient city in northern Mali from government control. It soon fell under the control of militants, who started imposing a strict version of sharia law on the inhabitants. Women were forced to wear veils in public, adulterers were whipped or stoned, thieves had their hands amputated and centuries-old burial chambers were destroyed.

Thousands of people fled from Timbuktu and many sought shelter to the south in the Malian capital, Bamako. Fatima Nialy, a mother of four, joined the flow heading south because she felt like a prisoner in her own house in Timbuktu. In Bamako, she and her children – including a one-month-old son – were taken in by relatives, using a room in her older brother's home.

In February 2013, not long after French and Malian forces liberated Timbuktu, Fatima decided to return home with her children. Photographer Thomas Martinez followed them.