‘Hi Baba and Mama, I miss you a lot. Tomorrow is my birthday and I’ll be twelve. I want you to know where I sleep and which school I’m going to. I’ll show you everything with my selfie stick.’ When Tareq flees the war in Syria, he must leave his parents, little sister and little brother behind. He heads for Europe and an uncertain future. When will he get to see his parents again? A dangerous journey follows, and once he arrives in the Netherlands the waiting begins. If he had known that it would take a year, would he still have left? Did he really have a choice?
Ammar is 13 and a Syrian refugee in Jordan. He has been living in the Zaatari refugee camp for two years. He wishes to go back home where going to school wasn’t as tiring as it is now. He works all day to earn enough money to support his parents and siblings. By the time he gets to school he’s exhausted from working all day. Nearly half of the Syrian refugees’ households in Jordan rely at least partly on their children’s income.
A recent Nepali immigrant to the United States must figure out what is bothering his son before he loses him.
In the harshness of the Arizona desert, a Mexican man and his son are faced with a major crisis of conscience as they try to cross the border illegally.
Life is tough at the border between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
Carlos was born in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, a city with the world's highest homicide rate outside a war zone. He was one of 60,000 unaccompanied children to cross the U.S. border from Central America in 2014, fleeing drug cartels that used children as foot soldiers.
Newly emigrated from Iran, Mahsa and Majid have impatiently awaited their first day of school. When the day finally arrives, a battle of wills between father and son threatens to thwart the conservative views of a single father who's held on to his autocratic ways for far too long.
Nine-year old Mirna is from Iraq. She is internally displaced and has spent more than one year in a camp. Her family fled their town after t bombings. There are over three million children in Iraq who have been affected by the crisis. She hopes to become a lawyer and a teacher one day. Mirna is only one of three internally displaced children who received education in 2014-2015. During her free time, Mirna likes to learn and write poetry, and she is very passionate about children’s rights. She shared one of her poems with us.
A volunteer in an Italian shelter finds herself in a tough spot when a Syrian refugee, who has had a miscarriage during her traumatic journey across the Mediterranean Sea, asks for help to find a smuggler who can reunite her with her family in Sweden.
The story of young Palestinian boys spending most of their childhood selling bric-a-brac at military check points in order to supplement their family’s income. Confronted by the daily repression of Israeli army they dream of a future.
This short documentary was made during a SDI documentary workshop in Palestine, organised by the British Council & the Young Palestinian Filmmakers Society.
Two opposite worlds briefly meet one night when - somewhere in the south of Spain - a young woman decides to have a coffee with a Congolese refugee she meets at a local train station.
Italy is a wonderful country, but just a stepping-stone for the many refugees coming from Africa. For those who remain, their option is scraping up some change by pumping gas at self-service stations at night...
Sunday night in snowy Germany. On television, the usual news about refugee disasters on the coast of Italy, in the kitchen sushi is being stacked on a plate. A couple tries to spend a cosy evening, but suddenly a stranger, who is freezing outside, is ringing the doorbell...
Joel, a rising Latino immigration officer, moves to a small Texas town to pursue his career but quickly realizes that he must decide how to best serve his country while still honouring his heritage.
As Hungary cracked down on its border policies, those seeking refuge in Europe made one last push before their route was altered permanently. The tightening of the Hungarian frontier marked a crucial shift in the migrants' journey, leaving them in limbo and forcing many to divert through Croatia, or cutting the fence separating Serbia and Hungary and risking significant jail time.
VICE News followed refugees the day before Hungary was set to act, seeing the desperate measures migrants and refugees resort to, and talking to those who had made the journey from Syria, trying to beat the deadline.
Forced to go into exile for religious problems, a young African prince finds shelter in Italy as an asylum seeker. Like other migrants, he no longer has the opportunity to dream. Europe represents just another desert where the past is deleted by history and the future appears uncertain and dubious.
Desperate to escape conflict and poverty, thousands of migrants and refugees attempt the perilous journey to Europe each year, with many crossing the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa in rubber dinghies and wooden boats.
In the wake of the decommissioning of Mare Nostrum, a search and rescue operation run by Italy, the humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), launched their own vessel, named the Bourbon Argos, to find those stranded at sea and save those in trouble on one of the deadliest routes to Europe.
On board the vessel, refugees and migrants are provided with medical aid, food, and shelter, then brought safely to Italian shores. Having survived life in Libya, ruthless treatment by smugglers, and horrific conditions aboard flimsy boats, once aboard the Bourbon Argos they face yet more uncertainty as they approach Europe.
Caught in the gears of a US immigration crisis, twelve-year-old Ana arrives at an immigration detention center with nothing but the clothes on her back, her mute, younger brother, and a treasured music box. Ana finds that seeking safety will cost more than she bargained for.
Quedate (Stay) is the story of Guillermo, a transporter of illegal immigrants, who works for a human trafficking ring on the outskirts of New York City. One fateful night during the arrival of a group of Central Americans, he discovers two refugees, Alondra and her son, Victor, hiding inside his truck. He reluctantly decides to shelter them in his apartment for several days while his organization begins the hunt to find them. As Guillermo grows increasingly attached to Alondra and Victor, he begins seeing them as a way out of his dark lifestyle - until his secret is discovered.
A young Congolese woman shares her story of becoming a victim of child trafficking and being thrown into a whirlwind of drifting between continents.
Detention centres for undocumented immigrants who have committed no crime are probably the darkest and most troubling side of the immigration enforcement system. Through the stories of Mourtada, Samuel and Peggy, we will discover the human cost of these policies which will be deeply analysed by experts and significant people from very different perspectives.