Just when we thought that our neighbour, Tanzania, was about to rethink its current policy of expelling other nationals from its soil, another problem came up. The latest news coming out of Tanzania is that some 25,000 Burundians were summarily rounded up and told to go back to Burundi. In addition, apparently 10,000 teachers from…
On 30th June this year, the day of the cessation of their refugee status, one and a half thousand Rwandan refugees crowded into the Lusaka Anglican Cathedral in a church service organised by Zambian church leaders to hear the Minister of Home Affairs reaffirm that they could continue to make their home in Zambia. The…
Being a Rwandan refugee living in the Great Lakes region right now is a dangerous occupation, not least in Uganda where tens of thousands continue to live in exile. They have been, and continue to be, caught up in power games that are being played out across the region and beyond with the government of…
Infrastructural development projects disrupt the lives of thousands of people every year without much attention paid to the human cost. In fact, it is widely believed that up to 80 million people have been displaced by the construction of large dams worldwide. Yet a lot more attention is paid to conflict-induced displacement (albeit with varying…
On the occasion of World Refugee Day, the International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI) would like to draw the attention of the authorities and Senegalese public opinion to the situation of refugees. Senegal has signed and ratified international and regional conventions relating to the 1951 UN and the 1969 OAU Conventions on refugees. In addition, Senegal…
It is rare for countries to offer citizenship to groups of refugees, especially in the Great Lakes region where millions have been displaced. Instead, most governments wait for circumstances to change so that refugees can go back to their home country. In official refugee policy language, therefore, repatriation is typically favoured over local integration as…
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…
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…
Right now, a group of 30,000 Burundian refugees living in Tanzania’s Mtabila camp have no idea what the future holds for them. Or at least they do have an idea, and it is deeply concerning. They have been told that their status as refugees is at an end and that they must leave Tanzania by…
Matt Corrigan is a human rights lawyer currently working on projects in South Sudan In May 2012, United Nations agencies flew thousands of South Sudanese from Kosti in (North) Sudan to Juba in South Sudan. Their transfer was forced by the authorities of Kosti who demanded that they be resettled in the South. They form…
On June 19 2012, IRRI, along with Accueil Aide et Assistance aux Réfugiés (AAAR) and Action pour les Droits Humains et l’Amitié (ADHA), organised a demonstration in Dakar to celebrate World Refugee Day. Representatives from about ten refugee communities living in Senegal participated in the celebration, including Gambians, Guineans, Ivoirians, Mauritanians, Chadians, Sudanese, Congolese, Rwandans,…
Today is International Refugee day. It’s a day when officials visit refugee camps and refugees are made to sing and dance and look happy. It’s a day when they are supposed to express their gratitude to those who give them assistance. But refugees don’t want help or handouts. They want justice, they want fairness. They…
Thousands of Burundian refugees in Tanzania are coming under increasing pressure to return ‘home’. The most visible group of refugees, those living in Mtabila camp (one of the last camps remaining open in Tanzania), have been resisting return for more than two years despite significant pressure from the governments of Burundi and Tanzania. Read more
In a research published titled “Who Belongs Where? Conflict, Displacement, Land and Identity in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo” by the International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI) in partnership with the New York-based Social Science Research Council (SSRC), views of the ongoing conflict in the east of the country are presented from the perspective of those displaced by it –…
Recent research in Burundi on the repatriation of refugees has highlighted the strong link between land and citizenship. The research (“Two People Can’t Share the Same Pair of Shoes: Citizenship, Land and the Return of Refugees to Burundi“) tracked the experience of refugees returning to southern Burundi and (re)claiming their citizenship. Most had been living…
The International Refugee Rights Initiative, in partnership with Rema Ministries and the Social Science Research Council, released a new paper,”Two People Can’t Share the Same Pair of Shoes: Citizenship, Land and the Return of Refugees to Burundi.” The paper, the second in the series Citizenship and Displacement in the Great Lakes region, tracks the…
This paper outlines serious concerns regarding the protection of refugees in the country: once the camp is closed, approximately 30,000 refugees will be effectively homeless. Pressure to repatriate combined with a clear reticence on the part of refugees to return, calls into question the voluntary nature of the exercise. Meanwhile the outcome of a special…
A note issued by the Darfur Consortium in collaboration with IRRI to the African Union It has been just over one month since the expulsion of 13 international humanitarian agencies from Sudan by the Government of Sudan and the suspension of the operations of three leading local organisations which provided protection and humanitarian aid. Along…
The region has set out on the path to peace and development. Peace agreements have been concluded in Burundi, southern Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Negotiations to end the war in northern Uganda are ongoing. Large numbers of refugees have been able to return to their homes in Angola, Burundi, southern Sudan…
When the meeting between Burundian and Rwandan government officials on Saturday June 11 ended, a decision had been reached. The two sides had decided to rename asylum seekers from both countries as “illegal immigrants” and treat them accordingly. What followed was a quick operation to deport thousands of Rwandan asylum seekers from Burundi. About…
