What happens when you find you have suddenly become a foreigner in the country of your birth? This is exactly what happened to Darfurians last year who were living in South Sudan at the point at which it became the world’s newest state. As Darfur is geographically in the reduced (north) Sudan, technically they were…
In 2011, Africa had an estimated 9.7 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), more than on any other continent. Forced displacement due to internal conflicts, natural disasters as well as bomb attacks, which are alarmingly on the increase in countries such as Nigeria and Kenya, have all contributed to this number. During a summit held in…
On December 18, 2012, the ICC will announce the second verdict in its history against Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui. In contrast to the fear and anticipation which preceded the March verdict against Thomas Lubanga, this decision is being awaited quietly by people in the affected region of eastern DRC. Many opinion leaders are hesitant to…
The residents of Tanzania’s Mtabila refugee camp are currently being returned to Burundi against their will. This population, most of whom fled to Tanzania in the 1990s, has been facing increasing pressure to return to Burundi for several years in something of a battle of the wills: on the one side has been the government…
On one of the social networks I subscribe to there was this posting: “Many States in the world have corrupt officials. In Uganda, the corrupt have a State.” Who wouldn’t understand this given the amount of money meant for poor parts of the country that has found its way into private vaults? No wonder those…
As soon as a conflict is resolved enough to allow for return (whether voluntary or coerced), and the return package has been handed over to those who have signed up for the repatriation programme, the crisis is deemed to be over, funding is re-directed (i.e. reduced) and reintegration falls off the radar. The problem with…
