Jeanne Carstensen

Jeanne Carstensen is a San Francisco-based writer and editor.

Jeanne Carstensen is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, "Foreign Policy," The World, "The Nation, Salon," "Nautilus," and The Global Post, among other outlets. She covered the Syrian refugee crisis in Greece, Turkey and Europe with support from the Pulitzer Center and was short-listed for the Immigration Journalism Awards. Carstensen has been awarded fellowships at the Logan Nonfiction Program, National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University, and Mesa Refuge, where she was the Peter Barnes Long-form Journalism honoree. Previously, she was managing editor of Salon and The Bay Citizen, which produced the Bay Area pages of The New York Times. Born in Portland, Oregon, Carstensen has lived in France, Greece and Costa Rica, where she was a shortwave radio producer and translator. She lives in San Francisco.Her book, "A Greek Tragedy: Twenty-Four Hours, a Deadly Shipwreck, and the Human Cost of the Refugee Crisis," will be published by Atria/One Signal Publishers in 2024.Photo by Marissa Leshnov.


Patrice Quélard in Saint-Nazaire, France. In 2016, Quélard co-founded the Citizen’s Initiative to Help the Refugees of Saint Nazaire. The city has welcomed around 200 refugees as part of the EU’s relocation program.

This small French city wants to be a good home for refugees

Conflict

Saint-Nazaire is famous for its shipyards. But the small city on the coast of Brittany in western France is also becoming known for something else — the welcome it gives to refugees.

Members of the Noh family in Ritsona refugee camp in Greece in May 2016.

This Yazidi family escaped genocide in Iraq. Their next challenge is building a life in France.

Conflict
Christa Schmidt at the table in her apartment in Traunreut where she tutors refugees in German. Schmidt’s parents were German refugees from Romania.

A small German city finds it’s not easy welcoming hundreds of Syrian refugees

Conflict
Wesam Daas, left, with Carnival revelers in Altenmarkt, Bavaria.

After fleeing Palmyra, this Syrian family is trying to find home in small-town Germany

Conflict
An Afghan family walks toward the Hungary-Serbia border on the day the new law takes effect.  They will live in a detention center until a decision is made on their claim.

‘How will I live there?’ Asylum seekers in Hungary are detained in shipping containers.

Conflict
Somali refugees

Three Somali journalists on Lesbos hope for the best — asylum in Europe

Media

Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis make up the majority of the refugee population stuck on Lesbos and other Greek islands. So the Africans there to seek asylum are often overlooked.

A Syrian refugee in northern Greece

Syrian refugees are now paying smugglers to take them back

Conflict

The EU’s asylum policies are failing. And conditions in Greece are so bad that many desperate Syrians see no other option but to make the dangerous journey back home.

moria refugees fire

Refugees lose the little they have left in Lesbos detention center blaze

Global Politics

The EU-Turkey deal has turned Lesbos into an open-air prison.

Salim Noah plays guitar

For Yazidis in Greece, safety and security are still out of reach

Conflict

Persecuted by ISIS, chased out of Iraq, the Yazidis have suffered a lot. And that was before they got to Greece, where other refugees, mostly Muslims, are still persecuting them.Persecuted by ISIS, chased out of Iraq, the Yazidis have suffered a lot. And that was before they got to Greece, where other refugees, mostly Muslims, are still persecuting them.

Renna Ramadan prepared an iftar meal for her family, Syrians from Idlib who hoped to reach Northern Europe but instead are living in the passenger waiting area at Piraeus Port Terminal 1 in Athens, Greece. Several hundred refugees and migrants remain at P

Muslim refugees stuck in Greece miss home more than ever during Ramadan

Conflict

The Greek government is making an effort to support Muslim refugees during Ramadan but for those stuck in limbo in tough conditions the holiday is also a painful reminder of better days.