What worries writer Chaker Khazaal most when he visits refugee camps in Europe and the Middle East is a pervasive sense of hopelessness. As he sees it, the desperation that comes from a lack of opportunity makes refugees vulnerable to extremist organisations offering them a route out.
"These are people we have failed as a community, as a global community," Khazaal told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a recent visit to our London office.
A second generation refugee, Khazaal knows these feelings well. Like his parents, Khazaal was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon. But his story is not typical: after learning English from visiting aid workers, he won a scholarship to York University in Canada. He now lives in New York City and writes articles and fiction about the plight of refugees.
In this short video Khazaal talks about what it's like to grow up as a refugee and shares his concerns about the consequences of the current crisis.
