The Forgotten Millions Campaign travels to the epicentre of the refugee crisis in Europe. Today, we reveal the human toll of the crisis.

Just a few kilometres from the Serbian-Hungarian border, a large group of refugees has gathered beneath a small copse of trees, sheltering themselves and their few bags of luggage from the rain.

Iraq and Syria may have been permanently torn asunder by war and sectarian tensions, the head of the United States Defence Intelligence Agency said yesterday in a frank assessment that is at odds with Obama Administration policy.

Volunteer tells Simon Collins working with refugees has taught her tolerance.

Australian combat aircraft could conduct their first missions to bomb Islamic State forces inside a week.

It's often said that magic is the art of misdirection. In the debate on the Syrian refugee crisis, misdirection seems ubiquitous, writes Dr Zain Ali.

'Thank you in the name of all the refugees," is the first thing the Syrian father-of-three says to us at the Mangere refugee resettlement centre.

Why Winston Peters says it is "reasonable" to expect male refugees from Syria to return home and fight.

For millions of Syrians and other people displaced by conflict in their home countries, the Western Balkan Route can be a road towards refuge in Europe.

Immigration Minister confirms New Zealand will take a total of 750 Syrian refugees - 600 in an emergency intake over and above the usual annual quota of 750.

Europe, with its ageing population, needs to increase its younger population by several million to avoid a situation where pension systems grow unsustainable.

The one-off intake will go "over and above" New Zealand's annual refugee quota, but will not number into the thousands, Prime Minister says.

The poet W.H. Auden said about suffering: it takes place while someone is eating or just walking dully along or doing a Pump class, writes Deborah Hill Cone.

Russia is building a military base in Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's heartland and the US is worried.

Today the Herald restarts its campaign The Forgotten Millions to help refugees from the Syrian crisis.

The leaders of the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches will put on a united front, asking the Prime Minister to increase the number of refugees New Zealand lets in.

The pre-dawn move eased immediate pressure on Hungary, which has struggled to manage the flow of thousands of migrants arriving daily from non-EU member Serbia.

It wasn't long ago that Iceland went broke. When the Global Financial Crisis hit, the country became a beggar. It couldn't pay its debts. The rest of the world ridiculed it, Heather du Plessis-Allan writes.

Half protest-march, half procession, the dismal crocodile of refugees left the Keleti station at 10am carrying what meagre possessions they could.

Syrian father Ahmad Barghach is desperate to bring his four children to join him in Auckland - but he's not finding it easy.

No country can stand aside if it wants to be recognised as a fully participating member of the international community, and that includes New Zealand.

Millions of refugees have fled Syria since 2011 but the number New Zealand has taken in would almost fit in one of Auckland's new double-decker buses.

The clandestine programme represents a significant escalation of the CIA's involvement in the war in Syria, enlisting the agency's powerful Counterterrorism Centre.

As the death toll on land and sea continues to grow, the EU summoned ministers to an emergency summit to discuss solutions to the crisis.

New Zealand's annual refugee quota of 750 has not changed since 1987. We're falling shamefully short every year in how much we help refugees.

New footage is believed to show the British Isis killer nicknamed 'Jihadi John' unmasked for the first time in Syria.

The Middle East continues its slide into chaos with Turkish warplanes joining the fray in Syria, further embroiling Nato's eastern rampart in that country's civil war.

More than half the 57 million young children still not in classrooms today live in countries torn apart by conflict or natural disaster, writes Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg.

Militants from Isis (Islamic State) are feared to have begun destruction of Syria's Roman city of Palmyra as the head of Unesco warned of "cultural cleansing" by the extremist group.

Isis jihadists have threatened "a calamity for kuffars" over the fasting month of Ramadan, and released a gruesome video of unorthodox execution methods.