The Libya crisis generated a massive influx of migrants and refugees in Tunisia and Egypt, which might be labelled a ‘mixed migration crisis’, and presented several new challenges to the humanitarian community. While the huge magnitude of the flows was…
For more than 60 years the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (1951 Refugee Convention) has provided the cornerstone of international protection for displaced persons. It is an important source of protection for many of those fleeing popular…
This article draws on assessment reports and profiling exercises carried out by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to map out needs in areas for return and to pave the way for reintegration and community stabilisation programmes. The findings of…
In 2011, during the first three weeks of March, 36,594 Bangladeshi migrants fled the violence in Libya and returned to Bangladesh. Returnees were greeted at the airport by IOM staff who provided assistance with registration and immigration processing and immediate…
In February and March 2011, Tunisians were managing the fallout from their own revolution. Governmental institutions were on hold, and security and policing were absent in south-eastern Tunisia, the area closest to Libya’s western border. Informal but highly effective community…
The countries neighbouring Libya were not in a position to provide more than temporary refuge for many people who had experienced multiple displacement from their countries of origin and previous countries of asylum. “I am very happy but also fearful,”…
By post-conflict standards, Libya has relatively few internally displaced persons (IDPs) but many of these, including several entire displaced communities, face the prospect of protracted internal displacement. For households that remain displaced within their own towns due to the wartime…
In the heady days of the Arab Spring in 2011, even as protesters in Tahrir Square took up a chant proclaiming “We are all Egyptian”, many refugees and migrants in Egypt were facing increased xenophobia, overt racism and violence. The…
The migration dimension of the Libya crisis has engaged with a growing debate over the crisis-migration nexus. A ‘migration crisis’ – that is, a disaster creating large-scale population movements that are complex in terms of the persons affected and the…
The dilemmas of assisting people moving in ‘mixed flows’ have long been debated, including whether and how to define categories of people on the move, how to access and ensure assistance and protection for the most vulnerable, and how to…