In the space of a few weeks of May 2008, a vast number of primarily African non-nationals were violently displaced from their communities of ‘urban integration’ in South African townships. Large numbers of asylum seekers and refugees became IDPs –…
Military operations in August 2008 in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) led to significant displacement of people. By late March 2009 over 13,000 families (more than 86,000 individuals) had been registered in eleven camps while some 70,000 families (420,000…
When the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) was established in 1956, the task of the organisation was limited to receiving and integrating the 1,400 Hungarian refugees who had fled to Denmark following the Soviet invasion of their country. At the time…
From 2006 to 2008, over 150,000 people were displaced into over 65 IDP camps and transitional shelters. During this time, there was a rise in the number of cases of domestic violence and sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) for reasons…
A study of displaced populations in Bogotá shows how forced displacement due to political violence has had a profound impact on the family unit in Colombia.[1] When forced displacement occurs, some family members – mainly adults and young men –…
With unprecedented levels of political repression and the meltdown of their country’s economy, many Zimbabwean women and men have come to view migration as the only way to ensure family survival and to escape persecution and torture. Opportunities for legal,…
Popularly known as “the events”, the 1989 violence between Mauritania and Senegal was triggered by a dispute over grazing rights in the Senegal River valley which forms the border. In Senegal, where many shopkeepers were Mauritanian, shops were looted and…
In trying to develop and implement strategies that support displaced populations, humanitarian and development agencies are faced with a range of difficulties, including the displaced people’s ‘invisibility’ among other urban poor and the consequent lack of available data on them.…
The majority of the world’s population already lives in towns and cities – with nearly 1.5 billion people living in precarious informal and slum settlements. Climate change and the natural disasters linked to it, rising global food crises and higher…
As humanitarian actors develop new modalities for addressing growing levels of urban displacement, a Task Force of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee Working Group reviewed the changing context and the main characteristics of the challenges in question.[1] This article is based…