West Africa has been heavily affected by displacement. Internal conflicts based on ethnic tensions and rivalries, political instability, disputes over the control of natural resources, natural disasters, poverty, food insecurity and the imperatives of development have all resulted in significant…
More than three million Colombians – in a country with a population of 40 million – have been forced from their homes during the last two decades of conflict.[1] In recent years illegal armed groups have increasingly resorted to displacement…
Some 1,110 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 156 Israelis, including 116 soldiers, have been killed in the conflict that flared up after Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers on 12 July. Approximately 900,000 Lebanese – out of a total population…
“By far the most protracted and largest of all refugee problems in the world today is that of the Palestine refugees, whose plight dates back 57 years. The UN General Assembly’s Resolution 181 of November 1947 recommending the partition…
One of the main objectives of the Zionist scheme in Palestine was eradication of Palestine from the map, both as a political entity and a basis of nationality. Today more than half of the eight million or so Palestinians are…
UNRWA began operations on 1 May 1950. Its first priority was to secure a reasonable standard of living for refugees by providing basic food rations, shelter and social welfare facilities. UNRWA’s first decade of work established the blueprint for its…
As noted in preceding articles, UNRWA was created in the aftermath of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict. After fleeing or being expelled, over 900,000 Palestinians sought refuge in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, while others were displaced to the West Bank or…
Since DRC established an office in Lebanon in August 2004 we have identified around 3,000 individual non-ID refugees living in informal refugee camps in the south and the Beq’a valley. Unlike 1948 refugees, most are not settled in camps with…
Palestinians who arrived in Jordan in the immediate aftermath of the nakba (catastrophe) of 1948 were granted Jordanian citizenship. As Jordanian citizens they and their descendants hold passports valid for five years, enjoy the right to vote and have full…
According to the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s Revised Disengagement Plan of 6 June 2004,[1] the evacuation of Gaza means that there will be no permanent presence of Israeli security forces within Gaza. The Plan, however, also provides that “Israel will guard…