Property restitution touches on all aspects related to successful return: protection, law and order, reconciliation and peace building, restoration of livelihoods, strengthening of local institutional capacity and, ultimately, the chance to bury past conflict and working towards a peaceful future.…
Legally, the right to post-conflict property restitution derives from two independent rationales. The most commonly cited rationale is the 'right of return' whereby refugees and IDPs are entitled to return voluntarily not only to their country but to their actual…
Mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) do not recognise cease-fires and peace agreements and pose serious obstacles to the safe return and reintegration of refugees and IDPs. Agencies providing assistance to refugees and IDPs have not always demonstrated the necessary awareness…
The Office of the High Representative (OHR)(1) administers BiH. BiH is divided into two equal-sized entities, the Republika Srpska (which forms a semi-circular shape around the north and east) and the Federation (mostly populated by Croats and Muslims), both of…
Following the rapid return to Rwanda of over one million refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the end of 1996, soldiers who had been responsible for genocide launched an insurgency in northwest Rwanda. The Rwandan army used…
Since the assassination in 1993 of Burundi's first democratically elected leader it is estimated that 300,000 Burundians have died as a result of conflict between the government and Hutu rebel groups seeking to put an end to the political dominance…
The world's longest-running civil war has pitted the largely Arab northern half of Sudan against the black African south on and off for over 40 years. More than two million people have been killed and over four million displaced. However,…
International child protection agencies used to plan the return and reintegration of CAFF separately from other war-affected and vulnerable children and youth. Increasingly, such planning tends to be merged within a broader framework for a range of vulnerable children and…
In preparation for working in post-conflict communities in several areas of Liberia, Oxfam GB consulted a sample of civilians, displaced persons and current and ex-combatants (using this category in its broadest sense to include anyone associated with the fighting factions…
In early 2004 it seemed that ethnic-based persecution and drought - the two main drivers of internal displacement in Afghanistan - had abated. Due to significant levels of return (and a stricter redefinition of what makes somebody an IDP rather…