Millions of refugees are being put at greater risk because they do not have access to enough energy to cover their basic needs.
According to the latest figures from the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, more than 96 per cent of more than 25 million displaced people are living in off-grid camps. And more than 84 per cent are cooking with biomass, like wood, daily.
To get by, many are forced to undercook meals, skip meals, or sell food rations to buy other forms of cooking fuel like gas.
"Without affordable, sustainable energy you cannot have safe food," Nadia Jbour, head of office at UN High Commissioner for Refugees in the UAE, told The National.
Without affordable, sustainable energy kids cannot go to school, women become vulnerable to attacks at night and communities cannot thrive
“Without affordable, sustainable energy kids cannot go to school, women become vulnerable to attacks at night and communities cannot thrive.
“Everybody has the right to have things like water, a proper education and security, but these people are missing out.”
A lack of energy resources has led to a number of health issues in camp settlements too, she said.
Extreme temperatures in inadequate shelters have spread illness like cold and flu, and lighting fires indoors for warmth has resulted in respiratory complications and lung conditions among some refugees.
During a panel discussion at Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, Ms Jbour, who recently joined the UNHCR office in the UAE, said providing humanitarian energy solutions in areas of displacement is the need of the hour.
“Refugees are desperate for energy. It is a major problem and a major violation of rights.
“One of the UN sustainable development goals is to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable energy for all.
“We need to tackle this head on.”
The impact of having to use alternative energy resources like wood and fuel add to the growing climate crisis too.
Diesel generators create carbon emissions and the collection of firewood contributes to the destruction of trees, globally.
“Not only this, the constant battle to find substitute materials for cooking and heat can lead to friction and unrest between refugees camps and host communities due to competition of resources,” Ms Jbour said.
In terms of funding, humanitarian agencies are paying over the odds for the energy.
Each year, the UN spends about $100 million on generators and fuel. And for the whole of the humanitarian sector, that cost is estimated to be about $400 million.
“That money could be used differently. We need to reinvent energy solutions in these settlements to align with modern technology.”
One such project that did just that was at the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan.
In 2017, the UNHCR built the largest solar plant of its kind and provided power to 80,000 people within the settlement.
The plant helped to reduce annual carbon dioxide emissions from the camp by 13,000 metric tonnes per year, the equivalent of 30,000 barrels of oil.
Affordable energy is just one of many needs of refugees, but it has received little attention in the humanitarian field over the years.
“The challenge now is how to make sure that energy becomes the mainstream need. We need to link old humanitarian efforts with new,” Ms Jbour said.
“Without access to water and electricity, food safety is compromised, a good education is out of reach, and health and safety becomes a huge issue.”
Where focus has typically been on traditional aid like food, clothes and water, improving energy solutions presents a host of opportunities. And it requires a collaborative effort from governments, entrepreneurs and society as a whole.
Provision of sustainable, reliable, affordable energy will increase a person’s dignity, improve refugee work skills and reduce the environmental footprint.
By enhancing the workforce skills of refugees, it can significantly help a person transition into life back home.
“These skills will never be lost. If they go home they can work. They will feel empowered, motivated.
“Just think about it. The average refugee spends 17 years of his or her life displaced.
“If you freeze someone’s life for 17 years it’s a lost generation. No education, no prospects, no opportunities for enhancing skills. It’s like stopping the clock on their life.”
But energy solutions could reverse this cycle. Electricity and water would provide an essential lifeline for camp residents, from job creation to lighting shelters, maintaining hygiene and preserving food.
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Name: The Concept
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Why are asylum seekers being housed in hotels?
The number of asylum applications in the UK has reached a new record high, driven by those illegally entering the country in small boats crossing the English Channel.
A total of 111,084 people applied for asylum in the UK in the year to June 2025, the highest number for any 12-month period since current records began in 2001.
Asylum seekers and their families can be housed in temporary accommodation while their claim is assessed.
The Home Office provides the accommodation, meaning asylum seekers cannot choose where they live.
When there is not enough housing, the Home Office can move people to hotels or large sites like former military bases.
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Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
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The Settlers
Director: Louis Theroux
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Honeymoonish
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Dhadak
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Family reunited
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was born and raised in Tehran and studied English literature before working as a translator in the relief effort for the Japanese International Co-operation Agency in 2003.
She moved to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies before moving to the World Health Organisation as a communications officer.
She came to the UK in 2007 after securing a scholarship at London Metropolitan University to study a master's in communication management and met her future husband through mutual friends a month later.
The couple were married in August 2009 in Winchester and their daughter was born in June 2014.
She was held in her native country a year later.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
