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…
Jean-Marc is Burundian by nationality. But he has never lived in Burundi. He was born into exile in Rwanda in 1976 where he lived as a refugee until the 1994 genocide when his father was killed and the rest of the family had to flee to Tanzania. Over the course of the next two decades,…
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…
Please note that this blog was previously posted on www.katangatrial.org Four months after being acquitted in the second trial verdict at the International Criminal Court (ICC), Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui is fighting to remain in Europe, having applied for asylum in the Netherlands. His claim is based on his contention that information he presented during his…
Approximately 162,000 former Burundian refugees in Tanzania are living in legal limbo in Tanzania. Having been accepted for naturalisation and having renounced their Burundian nationality, they are now unable to get certificates confirming their new status. The situation facing this group is the subject of a paper launched by the International Refugee Rights Initiative today, “I…
Today, 4th March, Kenyans go to the polls to elect a new leader after current President Mwai Kibaki bows out. The elections are being watched with a keen eye across the world, and particularly throughout the region given the wider regional implications of its outcome. But no country in the region will be watching more…
Please note that this blog was previously posted on www.katangatrial.org Dear readers – please find below a commentary written by Olivia Bueno at the International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI) in consultation with Congolese activists. The views and opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the International Refugee Rights Initiative or…
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…
Although it is relatively easy to start a war, it is much harder to sustain it – or at least to sustain it in any effective way. There is an assumption that what distinguishes war from anarchy is that people are fighting for something. Anarchy, on the other hand, is just that: anarchy. While what…
I know I blogged about Uganda’s 50th birthday earlier in the week, but this one has to be told. I have just agonisingly – and sometimes covering my face in shame – finished watching a YouTube clip that has gone viral. It’s about Uganda’s Ambassador Maurice Peter Kagimu Kiwanuka speaking at a symposium of the…
On 9 October 1962, Uganda was handed her independence with great fanfare. Today marks 50 years of self-rule – or misrule, depending on your perspective. But what are we celebrating? Did Uganda really deserve to be independent? And what has independence brought us? These are questions that we as Ugandans have to ask ourselves as we…
Akoi, a father of three, recently returned to Juba from Khartoum. Since arriving he has struggled to find work and barely makes ends meet by running errands in the local market. ‘When I was in Khartoum I had a small business [repairing farming equipment]. In Juba I make little money. Often my children go to…
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…
Displacement is often part of a cyclical process of conflict and displacement. Preventing displacement, therefore, is not only about preventing new displacement but about ensuring that people do not get re-displaced. Read the full article.
(10 August 2012) On 21 July 2012, Tanzania’s Daily News reported that Tanzanian President, Jakaya Kikwete, had announced that “all refugee camps sheltering Burundian refugees would be closed down”. There was, the paper quoted him as saying, “no strong reason for the Burundians to stay […] when back home peace had been restored and life…
