Violence erupted in Tajikistan in 1993 when tens of thousands of IDPs and refugees began returning to their homes. In many villages, newly returned people found their homes occupied by others or they became victim of physical assaults incited by…
Population displacements differ by cause, content, the way they unfold and the way they end. Answers about 'end' must vary depending on the initial cause of involuntary displacement - which may be war, a natural calamity or a necessary development…
There are approximately 639,000 Burundian refugees in neighbouring countries, plus a further 200,000 living in Tanzanian settlements since 1972.(1) As of November 2002, there were approximately 380,000 IDPs living in camps for IDPs and an unknown number of men, women,…
The development of policies for people internally displaced by the violence in Colombia is characterised by a tension between the approach of the government, which is predominantly operational , and that of the Constitutional Court, which has championed a focus…
At the heart of the problem is the UN agencies' and NGOs' struggle to agree on whether Rwandans relocated into new villages should be considered permanently resettled or still displaced. Over the last decade, Rwandans experienced repeated waves of displacement,…
A success story, in which the wishes of internally displaced people themselves prevailed, said some observers. Not so, insisted others, pointing to numerous flaws and problems along the way. So was the resettlement process really the final chapter in Sierra…
Before Sri Lanka's twenty-year-old civil war ground to a halt following the February 2002 ceasefire between the government and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), approximately 70,000 people were killed, over 750,000 were internally displaced and another 700,000…
The government's plan contained no details on how this was going to be accomplished other than providing three options for IDPs: i) returning them to their place of origin, ii) empowering them in their current location (i.e. integration) or iii)…
After gaining independence following the Soviet Union's dissolution, the southern Caucasus republics of Azerbaijan and Georgia saw a difficult period of transition characterised by internal and external inter-ethnic conflicts(1) that forced more than 1.44 million people to abandon their homes.(2)…
This article asks: if contingency planning is both standard practice and an intrinsic duty of humanitarian agencies, what were the sources of tension over preparing for an Iraqi crisis and what are the implications for any effective response? Participation in…