Internal refugees deserve same rights as the fleeing people from across the border

Stress eroding hospitality

Historically, the response of most African countries and communities towards the displaced has been generous, reflecting long-standing ethnic, political and cultural links between refugees and host populations. However, in recent years, the tremendous stress on the institution of refugee protection in Africa has eroded this hospitality. The large number of refugees in countries already experiencing remarkable social and economic hardships has brought into question the very capacity of African nations to cope with refugees.

In addition, due to global recession and the increased number of persons seeking asylum and humanitarian assistance world-wide, the international community’s capacity to shoulder the African refugee crisis has diminished.

In many cases, the refugees have been arrested and detained without charge. Others have been repatriated against their will or restricted to refugee camps or to remote, inaccessible locations where they are sometimes exposed to banditry, rape and other forms of criminality. Generally, many have not been able to enjoy social, economic and civil rights.

In a post-September 11 (2001) world, refugees have been caught in the intricate web of the Western-led war on terror. Now, they are pawns in a geopolitical game in which they are seen as agents of insecurity and terrorism.

During the battle for the heart and soul of Mogadishu in 2006/7, around 600,000 Somalis were forced to flee as the Transitional Federal Government, its Ethiopian allies and the insurgents of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) fought for power. Following sustained bombardment and street battles, the number displaced from the city and other areas of Somalia rose to one million people.

Wary of the security repercussions of Islamic militants and their supporters flocking into its soil, Kenya barred over 7,000 deserving Somali refugees from crossing over, precipitating a humanitarian crisis and international outcry.

During the 1998-2003 civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), 4 million people were killed and an estimated 1.1 million Congolese displaced, including 400,000 refugees. The war created new security dynamics involving Rwandese refugees and Congolese citizens of Rwandese stock (the Bunyamlenge).

Rwandese refugees (the Interahamwe Hutu militias who fled to the DRC) accused of perpetrating the 1994 genocide, re-grouped in the refugee camps and started recruiting fighters.

The Kinshasa onslaught by then Congolese rebel leader Laurent Kabila, Rwanda’s Paul Kagame and Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni was allegedly to counter the Hutu militias in the refugee camp.

Considerable progress has been made in recent years in raising the awareness of internal displacement and refugees’ protection. However, information gaps have remained on the size, composition and needs of displaced populations.

In many countries, where such gaps have existed, the host governments are neither willing to assist nor protect the internal refugees themselves. Such governments are also reluctant to let international humanitarian agencies get on with the job.

The five-year conflict in Darfur, Sudan, has forced over two million people to seek refuge in camps within Darfur, while a further quarter of a million has fled to Chad.

The huge internal refugee camps in Darfur are increasingly overcrowded and insecure, and humanitarian access remains severely limited. In other cases, internal refugees and refugees were forced to flee the camps and on several occasions forcibly relocated by government forces.

Darfur camps crowded