Story type: Story

From Venezuelan migrants in Ecuador to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, this photo essay gives a glimpse into how displaced people are coping amid a pandemic.

In Ghana, they call them “market queens”—women traders who have the connections and influence to organize women, adjust market prices, and influence trading patterns in their area. Faced with government shutdowns in local markets to stop the spread of COVID19, these women found ways to organize social distancing and keep the markets open so people could eat.

25 year old Muridi Zuberi is the first born of seven children, originally from Lower Juba, Somalia. He first arrived in Kenya in 2004 with his uncle. Muridi is married with a one and half month old baby.

As the world stays indoors, and individuals around the globe come together in a historical moment of solidarity to stop the spread of COVID-19, for many of the world’s most vulnerable people; lock downs, border restrictions and limitations on movement pose life threatening challenges.

In the winding alleys of Bab al-Tabbaneh’s vegetable market, in Tripoli, one could quickly slip into amnesia and become utterly oblivious of the Government of Lebanon’s enforced lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.

CARE teams and the people we serve have been rising to the challenge. They are adding one more critical ingredient: creativity.

In the midst of the global pandemic, there lies what the UN Secretary General describes as the ‘Invisible Pandemic” – Gender Based Violence, or GBV.

Although men and the elderly are said to be at higher risk of severe illness due to COVID-19, women and girls living in poverty and amid humanitarian crises face unique challenges.

“Yemen 5 years on… it is our fate to be constantly displaced”