Over the last 25 years, drought, violence and human rights abuses have pushed millions of Somalis from their homes.1 Many have remained within Somalia, while others have fled across international borders, either into neighbouring countries like Kenya, or further afield to Uganda, Europe or the United States (US). As with many large groups of exiles,…
On 28 August Israel’s High Court of Justice issued its ruling in an appeal on a district court decision concerning Israel’s “voluntary departures” scheme. Under this scheme, Eritreans and Sudanese irregular migrants are transferred from Israel to unnamed “third countries” in Africa. Israel has never disclosed the names of the countries involved in this…
Burundian refugees should “return to their homeland, because peace and security prevail on the whole national territory”, Burundi’s second vice-president, Joseph Butore stated during the Uganda Solidarity Summit on Refugees, held in Kampala in June 2017. Then during a recent visit to Tanzania, Burundi’s president Pierre Nkurunziza expressed a similar message to refugees there. However,…
The first six months of this year has continued at a pace for IRRI. Not only have the areas we work in continue to be challenging but we have worked hard to ensure the voices of the displaced and conflict affected communities are not only heard but heeded at the international level. In addition, our…
Read the press coverage of the report: Lucy Hovil, “Israel: Refugees not Welcome,” 21 September 2015 The Guardian article Al Jazeera, “Rejected by Israel, Eritreans find shelter in Germany,” 3 March 2017 Rebélion article Radio France International Interview Al Jazeera, “A refugee’s gruelling odyssey – from Eritrea to Germany,” 5 October 2015 Al Jazeera, “Do…
This paper draws on six years of field research in the Great Lakes region, incorporating nine units of field research. Each study focused on the links between citizenship and forced displacement in the Great Lakes region and examined both the differences and the interaction between local and national understandings of belonging.
Uganda is currently holding a Solidarity Summit on Refugees. The summit is taking place as Uganda hosts over a million refugees, the majority of whom have fled the upsurge in fighting in South Sudan. Despite the extraordinary speed and scale of displacement (between July 2016 and January 2017, over half a million refugees arrived in…
President Trump’s recent Executive Order is, without a doubt, extreme. The four-month hold on allowing refugees into the US, and the temporary ban on travellers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen, is both ridiculous and cruel. It is also wrong at multiple levels. It is flawed in its methodology, mistakenly based…
The International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI) is responding to the call for information about humanitarian responses to forced displacement in Central and East Africa. Dedicated to promoting human rights in situations of conflict and displacement and enhancing the protection of vulnerable populations before, during and after conflict, IRRI works to challenge the exclusion and human…
The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that this “quarterly” newsletter in fact covers six month of our activities so our apologies for it being a little longer than usual. In this update you can find information on our activities re protecting rights in exile, the causes and resolution ton conflict including our work on Gambia, Burundi, Sudan, South Sudan, DRC, citizenship rights…
The International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI) publishes an annual report on progress made in three focus areas: identifying the violations that cause displacement and exile; protecting the rights of those who are displaced, and ensuring the solutions to their displacement are durable, rights respecting, safe and timely. The 2016 report summarizes our work and looks…
Tomorrow marks a terrible anniversary for South Sudan. On December 15, 2013, fighting in Juba ignited a brutal conflict that has torn the country apart, leaving millions of South Sudanese in dire need. Today the country stands on a precipice. On behalf of the undersigned organizations we urge the UN Human Rights Council to use…
A week after accepting defeat in the Gambia’s 1 December polls, President Yahya Jammeh, in an extraordinary volte-face, rejected the results of the presidential election and ordered soldiers to take control of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), throwing the country into uncertainty. Today anxiety and disarray prevails in the minds of many Gambians as they…
In Burundi, people know only too well the consequences of war. And one of the most tangible consequences of war is displacement. But not only does war lead to displacement, failures to create a viable end to displacement can create the conditions for further unrest. This is precisely what has happened in Burundi, where a…
(7 December 2016) Today, the International Refugee Rights Initiative launched a new report, “I Know the Consequences of War: Understanding the dynamics of displacement in Burundi”. The report brings much needed insight as to how Burundians are deciding to flee or stay in a context in which more than 300,000 are already in exile. The…
In May 2016, the government of Kenya announced its plans to close Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee camp, by the end of this month, November. The government asserted that one of their primary reasons was security. The camp is home to almost 300,000 refugees from neighbouring countries with the vast majority – over 260,000…
On September 19, the UN Secretary-General will convene a summit meeting at the UN General Assembly in New York to address current “large movements of refugees and migrants.” Its goal is to ensure a re-commitment to the core principles of refugee protection and discuss new frameworks to respond to the increasing number of people on the move….
Since the outbreak of civil war in December 2013, more than 600,000 South Sudanese have fled to neighbouring countries. More than 226,000 of them have made their way to Ethiopia, contributing to the country overtaking Kenya as the country hosting the most refugees in Africa. The western region of Gambella hosts more than 270,000 of…
Last week the Be’er-Sheva District Court rejected a petition filed by two Eritrean asylum seekers and six Israeli NGOs against the government’s new policy of imprisoning irregular migrants who are unwilling to leave Israel to Uganda or Rwanda. By doing so, the court gave a green light to the indefinite imprisonment of Eritreans and Sudanese…
Although Zambia has a long tradition of hosting refugees and has been recognised as a generous and hospitable host, current legislation and policies impede the rights of refugees to freedom of movement, which, as IRRI has previously argued, is a “critically important refugee right.” A policy of refugee encampment, which isolates refugees in camps and…
