Riding on the back of a tortoise
My name is Abebe Feyissa Demo and I was born in Addis Ababa in 1960. Before I had to leave my homeland, I was studying in the University of Addis Ababa’s Department of Psychology. In 1991 I fled to escape…
Listening to the experiences of the long-term displaced
The Listening Project stems from the belief that those who work across borders in humanitarian aid, development assistance, peacebuilding, environmental conservation and human rights can learn a great deal by listening to the analyses and judgments of local people as…
Urban IDPs in Uganda: victims of institutional convenience
The largest wave of displacement in Uganda occurred in 1995-96, when the government forced civilians in northern Uganda into so-called ‘protected villages’ using mortars and helicopter gunships in the process. The ‘protected villages’ were later turned into IDP camps[1] which…
Transition, connection and uncertainty: IDPs in Kampala
Uganda’s long and brutal civil war resulted in the internal displacement of nearly 1.6 million civilians, of whom an estimated 300,000 to 600,000 fled not to one of the country’s many IDP camps but to urban destinations. In July and…
Urban Somali refugees in Yemen
Yemen shares characteristics with many other countries hosting urban refugees: lack of durable solutions; challenges of quantifying populations; a host government evading Convention responsibilities; hostility from a once-welcoming host community; political interference in choice of implementing partners; and, most fundamentally,…
Displacement within the city: Colombia
Since the late 1990s, Colombia’s major cities have been places where people become displaced between communes and quarters of the cities. The city continues to receive people displaced from the countryside but cannot be considered a safe refuge for them.…
Surviving in the city
Those are the words of a UNHCR staff member in the Syrian capital of Damascus, referring to the challenge of responding to the massive Iraqi refugee exodus that has taken place since 2006. UNHCR is familiar with the demands of…
ATM cash assistance: does it work?
Over 40,000 refugees and asylum seekers in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (Jordan) are registered with UNHCR and live primarily in urban settings. As Jordan has functioning national institutions, UNHCR has concentrated on reinforcing the capacity of Jordanian institutions (such…
Cities of Solidarity: local integration in Latin America
When the first group of Palestinian refugees arrived in April 2008 in La Calera, a city of 60,000 inhabitants in central Chile, it was a great event. The central square was filled with people as the people of Calera gave…
Shade netting: simple design – effective relief
In the relentless heat of the Pakistan summer, with temperatures well in excess of 40 degrees centigrade, the heat inside the tents used by hundreds of thousands of those displaced during 2009’s conflict in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and…