Photos on opposite page: © Jonathan Banks, © Anthony Upton/BRC, © Bob Collier/BRC. © Photo on this page: © W Refugee services We provide vital support to vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers in the UK, helping them access services and adjust to life in a new country. We also reunite families separated by conflict or disaster. Key facts > Our volunteers and staff helped > Many of our volunteers are 35,000 refugees and asylum refugees themselves and speak a seekers in 2011. wide range of languages. > 22,300 of those we helped > We opened 610 new tracing (64 per cent) were destitute. cases in 2011 to help separated athiq Khuzaie/Getty Images. families get back in touch. When Almaz fled her home in Ethiopia in fear of her life, she didn’t know if she’d ever see her husband and four daughters again. As she was going through the asylum process, she received orientation support from the Red Cross and also asked us to help trace her daughters. It took about ten months for us to find her two youngest daughters and Almaz was reunited with them at Heathrow Airport. Almaz said: “I couldn’t believe it. We were all crying and screaming. It was a very happy moment. The Red Cross’ support is really good and I was comforted and encouraged a lot through this time.” We were later able to reunite Almaz with her two other daughters, who were living in Kenya, and have now joined her in the UK. redcross.org.uk/refugee