When one of the strongest storms in recorded history slammed the Philippines in 2013, more than 6,000 people lost their lives and 90 percent of homes in the hardest hit areas were damaged or destroyed.

Today, as South Sudan marks the anniversary of its independence, the new nation is engulfed by a growing humanitarian crisis. Hopes for a peaceful future expressed four years ago are now dashed. Thousands of people have been killed, and more than two million uprooted from their homes by civil war. Unspeakable atrocities have been committed by all parties to the conflict.

In 1984, Raesa,* just 14 years old, left her family in Jordan and moved to Syria with her husband to start a new life. When civil war broke out 28 years later, Raesa was forced to flee with her children, triplets, and seek refuge back in her own country.“We left Syria through the village of Tell Shihab and went to Ramtha [in Jordan]”, Raesa says, who is now the sole breadwinner for her family. Her husband decided to stay behind with his second wife and their family.

The world’s newest nation, South Sudan, has been ravaged by civil war and political infighting since 2013. After a peace agreement failed to unite the country last July, the conflict quickly spread to previously unaffected areas. That’s when the war came to Angelina Nyatuoy’s home in Mirmir, a small province of Panyijar County, located in South Sudan’s Unity state.

Since 2014, economic upheaval and political turmoil in Venezuela have caused 1.5 million people to flee the country, and this number is likely to rise as the crisis intensifies. Escaping devastating shortages, unemployment and soaring inflation, these refugees turn often to their country's closest neighbor, Colombia.

An Iraqi family's first Christmas at home after ISIS

Joining renowned hip hop recording artist, actor, poet and one of the UK’s best-loved podcasters Scroobius Pip was not an ‘average day in the office.’

Cholera is an ancient illness that today kills only the poorest and most vulnerable people. How is it affecting Yemen and East Africa?

Heavy monsoon rains and a tropical cyclone have claimed nearly 500 lives in six Asian countries this August, with Myanmar especially hard hit. Widespread flooding and landslides have displaced 240,000 families in 12 states and regions in the country, according to the National Natural Disaster Management Committee, with more than 100 people reported dead. In all, the storms have affected 1.1 million and destroyed well over 15,000 homes.

On Wednesday, June 14, a tragic shipwreck occurred off the Greek coast. Find out more about why people seeking protection are forced to take a dangerous journey across the Mediterranean Sea.