UNHCR considers repatriation to Afghanistan as a sustainable part-solution to a protracted refugee situation.[1] I doubt many Afghans would agree. Evidence suggests the opposite, with incidences of ‘recycling’, subsequent internal displacement and large numbers of refugees who remain outside Afghanistan.…
In Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), UNHCR broke new ground in the early 1990s by broadening its role with IDPs beyond assistance to also work for their protection. With the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA) in December 1995, UNHCR…
The Sri Lankan government is currently holding around 270,000 IDPs in what are in effect internment camps in the north of the country. The largest of the IDP camps, Menik Farm in Vavuniya District, holds just over 220,000 people, making…
It is estimated that there are over 600,000 IDPs in Sri Lanka, of whom 270,000 have been displaced in the recent military campaign between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the Northern…
International interest in refugees and asylum issues in recent years has largely focused on populations on the move – either on the arrival of individuals claiming asylum in Western states or on the challenge of delivering humanitarian assistance to displaced…
The plight of over 4 million people displaced by the conflict in Colombia fits into the definition of a protracted situation regarding numbers, duration, chronic character and lack of adequate response by local governments and the international community. However, the…
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…
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…
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…
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…