In Afghanistan nearly one million people are internally displaced. In recent months alone, hundreds of thousands of Afghans have fled fighting, drought and famine. Africa is the most affected continent, hosting approximately half of the world’s internally displaced population. Over…
For the past half century UNHCR has been at the heart of international debates about human rights and international responsibility. In no other UN agency are values and principled ideas so central to the institutional mandate and raison d’etre or…
I was in Geneva interviewing officials regarding what they saw as the environmental demands and organisational reasons that accounted for the evolution of the agency’s repatriation policy. This particular official was slightly more vitriolic than most when it came to…
Tens of thousands of Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) and Croats in the area were expelled from their homes by Serb military, paramilitary forces, police and, often, neighbours. Some were killed while others were sent to camps in the area, where many…
Refugees languish in ‘no-mans land’ while countries close their borders, fearing de-stabilisation if too many are let in; men, women and children seeking asylum are detained, sometimes for months on end; refugees are caught in camps placed dangerously near the…
The fall of the Berlin wall was to usher in a new world order of peace and prosperity. The ‘peace dividend’ has proven short-lived. Militarisation is rampant, from nuclear sabre-rattling in the Indian sub-continent, the first Pan-African war engulfing the…
Fifty years on both the convention and UNHCR’s mandate still reflect the spirit of the times in which they were drafted. The funding problems that perennially haunt UNHCR result from decisions made in the tense early days of the Cold…
After recent attacks UNHCR is unable to account for some 150,000 of the half million refugees in the country. Having fled wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia, refugees are caught up in Guinea’s conflict as both rebels and the government…
Land disputes among returning war-affected population groups endanger peace efforts in many fragile post-conflict settings. During Liberia’s 15-year civil war, around one million people fled as IDPs or refugees, abandoning their houses and land. When some of them returned to…
Aid agencies also make choices, performing a form of 'triage' in which the needs of older people are considered of less importance than, for example, those of women and children. In research carried out in 1999-2000 on emergency responses in…