By Peter Biro

AMMAN, Jordan - There were no balloons or a band to welcome this 1 millionth arrival. Frankly? We’ll never know who the millionth refugee was. That said, we are able to make some calculated guesses.

Amdjarass, Chad — A decade after the start of the Darfur conflict in Sudan, some 300,000 refugees remain in camps across the border in eastern Chad, reluctant to return home because of ongoing insecurity, loss of property and fear of oppression.

“Refugees tell us that they have no homes to return to and will only go back when there is real peace and security,” says Felix Leger, who oversees the International Rescue Committee’s humanitarian aid programmes in Chad.

Ned Colt/The IRC

Article: Ned Colt, Stefano Gelmini, Dominique Tuohy, Photography: Ned Colt, Peter Biro/The IRC

They walk for miles in a long, single file across the Syrian Desert on a moonlit night, or sit crammed into the back of a rusty truck trundling across the parched grassland between Sudan and South. These are the stories of some of the refugees who, over the last few months, have been forced in their hundreds of thousands to leave their homes, their countries, and often their families, in order to escape violence or the threat of starvation, or both.

International Rescue Committee medical teams are now treating patients at two medical clinics serving Syrian refugees in Jordan. The IRC has expanded aid efforts in Jordan following an influx of tens of thousands of Syrians fleeing fighting at home in the past year. The clinics offer primary health care and medication to Syrians, most of whom have no money to pay for medical support. Those in need of surgery and more complex care are being referred to Jordanian government hospitals.

Violence against Syrians has continued to escalate over the past few weeks, with more than 100 people killed in Houla according to the U.N., including 34 women and 49 children. The IRC continues to support displaced Syrian women and families in Jordan. Learn more about our work below from Asmaa Donahue, a technical advisor with the IRC’s Women’s Protection and Empowerment Team.

Article by Asmaa Donahue, Photography Ned Colt/The IRC

The photographs above were taken by the IRC's Liz Pender in and around the Yida refugee camp in South Sudan, to which tens of thousands of refugees have fled in recent months, following fighting in northern Sudan.

Photgraphy: Liz Pender/The IRC

Article: Stefano Gelmini

Syrian citizens continue to flee their homes and villages to escape a surge of violence that began earlier this week with the brutal killings of more than 100 people in Houla, many of them women and children.

The number of internally displaced people in Syria has more than doubled to 500,000 since the beginning of the April cease fire, according to the UN. Tens of thousands more have fled to neighbouring countries including Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey with some 4,800 refugees registering with UN regional centres in the last week alone.