Middle East

Israel deports MCC worker

Mennonite Central Committee service worker Rachelle Friesen of Swift Current, Sask., was deported from Israel in late May and is banned from entering the country for a decade.

She was returning from a regional staff retreat in Spain on May 29 when Israeli authorities detained her at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport.

According to an MCC Washington Office report, Friesen was detained for more than 30 hours, which included three sessions of interrogation. She was returned to Barcelona, where she was met by MCC colleagues before making her way back to Canada.

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June 23, 2014

Syrian refugee girls find light and hope at Lebanon center

Damaris, a 13-year-old Syrian refugee, still waits for her father to come home.

More than five months ago, she quit school when fighting between government and opposition forces began in her family’s Aleppo neighborhood. She and her family hid in the basement as the bombs fell. One day her father, a builder, went out to get some bread and never came home.

“To this day, we have no news of him,” said Damaris, who fled to Lebanon with her mother, aunt, grandfather (who has a heart condition) and four siblings.

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June 9, 2014