Developed in 1998, the Guiding Principles consolidate in one document the legal standards relevant for protecting and assisting people forcibly displaced within their own country. These Principles are widely accepted internationally but there is a long way to go until…
While over 250,000 people in Burundi have died as a result of conflict since 1993, HIV/AIDS has become the country's primary cause of adult deaths and an important cause of infant mortality. In this small country of seven million, though…
The example of one particular refugee settlement, Achol-Pii, in Pader district, reveals some of the specific problems that are created when refugees are forced to live in settlements in the midst of armed conflict. Conflict and flight The majority of…
The majority are from Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia and the Great Lakes region. There are two official refugee camps in Kenya: Dadaab, close to the Somali border, hosts about 150,000 refugees; Kakuma, located in northern Kenya near the Sudanese border, hosts…
As a student in 1977 I attended a meeting at which the Polisario representative urged students to assist yet one more struggle for liberation and self-determination. Although at the time most Arab students supported the Sahrawi cause, a minority, invoking…
Bus drivers idle their engines as they wait at the end of the highway leading to Cairo. Exhaust fumes swirling around them, fruit vendors preside indifferently over misshapen and rotting produce, shaded from the searing light by tattered umbrellas. A…
For South Africa, this was the first time it had faced such a challenge. (1) After a three month contingency planning process, however, by the eve of the elections the existing preparations only catered for 1000 people for three days,…
Blessed with petroleum, diamonds, gold and fertile land, this former Portuguese colony has the potential to be one of the richest countries in Africa. And yet, after four decades of war marked by terror tactics and scorched earth policies, the…
Faced with an ongoing struggle to bridge the gap between theory and reality, advocates for refugees have the option of using Africa's human rights mechanisms innovatively to argue the case for refugee rights. It is not that Africa is short…
The Republic of Yemen is the only country in the Arabian Peninsula to have signed the Convention and the 1967 Protocol. Yemen's proximity to the troubled countries of the Horn of Africa and to neighbouring wealthy Gulf countries have led…