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

In Chad, the number of internal refugees increased from 100,000 at the end of 2006 to nearly 180,000 a year later.

Continued fighting between the army, rebel groups and cross-border raids by Sudanese militias have all contributed to the increasing insecurity and forced more civilians to abandon their camps. Even in areas recovering from conflict, such as northern Uganda and Ivory Coast, durable solutions to internal displacement are still embryonic.

The 2005 UN World Summit Outcome Document titled Responsibility to Protect, recognised the responsibility of the international community to intervene in cases where governments manifestly failed to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

Although the concrete application of this responsibility to protect is still controversial, some progress has been made in strengthening the international protection regime for internal refugees and other conflict-affected civilians.

The UN Security Council set out a framework for action in Resolution 1674 (2006), and increasingly mandated peacekeeping operations to undertake activities in support of the protection of civilians. This is included in the AU-UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur and the UN missions in the Central African Republic and Chad.

The AU has viable instruments of addressing the refugee crisis, particularly its 1969 Refugee Convention which is under review and should take into account the new developments in South Africa.

AU member states should also hasten the conclusion of the draft Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa.

The coming to force, in 2008, of the Great Lakes Pact of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (IC/GLR) will go a long way in protecting internal refugees and refugees.

Patrick Mutahi works with Eastern and Horn of Africa Programme, Africa Policy Institute (Nairobi)

Africa Insight is an initiative of the Nation Media Group’s Africa Media Network Project.