Meeting our Match

Two weeks ago, we launched a matching gift campaign in honor of World Refugee Day. We are happy to report that we raised over $24,000 from people across the country in just five days. We wanted to take this opportunity to thank these donors, and all of you who support our work by donating, telling your friends about us, signing petitions, or just staying current on the plight of refugees by reading this blog.

The money raised will go directly to supporting our recent mission in Chad and all of our work around the world. In Chad, Mpako Foaleng and Erin Weir just assessed the dangers being faced by over 400,000 Sudanese refugees and Chadian internally displaced people. Mpako and Erin have just finished talking directly to European Union and United Nations officials in Brussels and Geneva about ways to ensure these people have food, shelter and protection from further violence. Next week, they will return to the US, where they will demand action from the US Congress and Department of State to support displaced people who desperately need our help.

We accept no government or UN funding – this allows us to say what needs to be said to those who need to hear it, and to push policy makers into doing what they don’t necessarily want to do.

Watch this video to learn more about our work and some of our achievements – achievements that are made possible by you.

--Megan Fowler

Chad: Before the Rainy Season

“The music has played again as is the case almost every year before the rainy season starts in eastern Chad.” This was a metaphor used by a Chadian in eastern Chad last month to describe the recent attacks by rebel groups against the government’s forces. The latest attack is one of many that has contributed -- together with ethnic tensions and the spill over of Sudan’s Darfur crisis -- to destabilizing eastern Chad in the last five years.

I recently visited Habile, a site for internally displaced people (IDPs) situated near the border between Chad and Darfur. Almost 29,000 Chadians have taken refuge there. In addition, more than 20,000 Sudanese refugees forced to flee violence and human rights abuses in Darfur, are currently hosted in Goz Amer camp, a mere eight kilometers away. They will not be able to return home to Darfur anytime soon, given the persistent insecurity in their villages.

However, in Habile, people are starting to consider returning home, especially those whose villages are located in relatively secure areas. Ahead of the rainy season, some people have returned to cultivate their land and start re-building their homes. One woman told me that if the security situation in her village continued to improve, her husband and their 4 children would return permanently.

This glimmer of hope is not shared by the majority of IDPs in Habile. People whose villages are located close to the border with Sudan are not planning to return soon. They are still afraid of attacks, killings and the loss of their property. The root causes of the violence that has forced people to flee their villages have not yet been properly addressed. In some border areas, there are no local authorities or government security forces, leaving these villages vulnerable to attack by armed rebels coming from Sudan.

The latest rebel attacks in the region have made things worse. In the past, Chadian rebel incursions have been followed by armed men on horseback from Sudan who profit from the chaos. They attack and kill civilians, and loot people’s property. These incursions have also generated tensions between communities, breaking the social fabric and weakening the traditional mechanisms for conflict prevention and management.

The UN Refugee Agency has been facilitating a dialogue between the leaders of the displaced communities and those from their home villages. Such initiatives have to be revitalised and understood as an integral part of a broader reconciliation process that will bring trust back among the different communities. This will set the stage so that when people return home to cultivate their land before the next rainy season, they can re-enter their communities and rebuild their lives.

-Mpako Foaleng

Colombia: Finding Solutions for Displaced Together

Traveling back from Tame to Arauca, on the border region of Colombia and Venezuela, my colleagues and I stopped in a little town called Pueblo Nuevo to meet with displaced people there. We had been trying to reach a local religious figure who was providing assistance to families in need, but had not yet reached him. So, we chose to just drop in and try our luck. Unfortunately, on arrival, not only could we not find the priest, but we also couldn't find the church. People seemed to not know where it was.

We meandered around town for several hours looking for someone who knew the priest. Someone directed us to the church, but no luck. Another neighbor jumped in the trunk of our car to show us to the incoming mayor’s house. However, the mayor apologized and informed us he wasn’t starting his job until July, so he didn’t know much about services being delivered to displaced people. However, he hopped on his bicycle to find someone who might and reemerged, with the priest. Perfect!

We rode back to the church and proceeded to have a long discussion with the priest about the displaced and their needs. Even more fortunately, the incoming mayor sat in on the meeting and was given a crash course in his future responsibilities to those families who are victims of the increase in guerrilla fighting and who have taken residence in his town.

The situation in Arauca is increasingly dire, as more and more families and communities are being displaced in a territorial dispute between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN). This is a place where violence is increasing, and the humanitarian response has slowly begun, but is not yet commensurate with the need.

We visited an area called “4 of December,” which was named for the day when displaced people took over what had been a tent town of vulnerable poor. People are living in homes made of plastic sheeting and wood taken from the forest. The presence of open flames for cooking in homes made of dried wood causes me to fear for the worst. The neighborhood, for lack of a better word, lacks electricity and running water -- a concerted decision made by the municipality in response to the “illegal presence of the displaced.”

Next, we head to Nariño to investigate the needs of displaced people there. I can only hope the situation has improved.

--Jake Kurtzer

Northern Uganda: Mixed messages in uncertain times

These are confusing times for people in northern Uganda. We have been here only one week, and have already heard so many contradictory statements. We can only imagine how difficult it must be for local people to decide which messages to believe.

When we met with people in one camp for the internally displaced, most of them told us that the main reason they could not go home yet was lack of basic services in their home village – particularly no clean water or shelter. But they still expressed fears that the lack of a peace deal could mean a return to war and going right back to the camps again. One woman told me, “If there is no signed peace agreement that means war and death.”

Not long before we arrived here things were looking unusually hopeful for northern Uganda. Many expected that a peace agreement would be signed between the Government of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). The infamous LRA has conducted years of insurgency, abducting people and terrorizing the population in the north of the country. But Joseph Kony, the leader of the LRA, failed to turn up to sign the agreement. The formal Cessation of Hostilities Agreement expired in April 2008 and has not been renewed. Yet, despite the lack of a signed peace deal, the LRA has not conducted any attacks in northern Uganda for over two years.

With the reduction in violence, many people have started the process of returning home from the camps. Almost all of the international agencies are talking about reducing emergency relief programs, and instead working with the government on development projects. But some local organizations have pointed out to us that northern Uganda has seen false dawns before and therefore they remain cautious.

A week before we arrived here, the LRA attacked villages in south Sudan, killing 23 people. Then, soon after we arrived we saw local newspaper headlines announcing that the LRA had re-entered Uganda. The next day the Ugandan army was on the radio denying this report and assuring the population that the Ugandan army reinforced its presence at the Sudanese border and will not allow the LRA to cross. Still, rumors are rife here.

The internally displaced persons’ camps in northern Uganda are not like those in most other parts of the world. People were ordered to move into these camps by the government. Frequently, the camps are less than 10 kilometers from home villages; some are only one kilometer away. Now the government is using strong rhetoric to push the message that people should go back home. The international agencies here give us good reasons for phasing out the camps, such as the recent outbreak of the rare Hepatitis E virus in Kitgum due to poor hygiene conditions in overcrowded camps.

Still, many people hold on to their hut in the camp, moving between it and the home they are constructing in or near to their home village. Some international agencies suggest this is so they can try to claim food handouts in the camp. That may be so, but people are also genuinely fearful. It takes time for a population traumatized by over 20 years of war to feel safe again and to trust that peace really has set in for good. And there are many reasons at the moment for them to distrust these messages. As one local leader said to us, “They were forced into the camps. Now it should be the community in the north which leads the process of return out of the camps, and at their own pace.”

--Melanie Teff

President’s Corner: Mrs. Bush

Thanks to Laura Bush, we now know that the White House is aware of the Iraqi refugee crisis. President Bush still has not mentioned the fact that 20% of Iraqis are displaced, but the First Lady included an Iraqi in her World Refugee Day ceremony.

Last Friday, I joined several dozen other refugee advocates at the White House to commemorate World Refugee Day. We sat in folding chairs under bright sun in the First Lady’s Garden as Mrs. Bush talked of America’s commitment to protecting refugees. She noted that in the last three decades, the U.S. has resettled 2.7 million refugees and that we are spending $1.2 billion on refugee resettlement this year.

Then she introduced three refugees—one from Burma, one Iraq and one from the Democratic Republic of the Congo—who had fled violence and persecution in their countries. Here is what she said:

Eh Moo Hoffman was born in a refugee camp on the Thai-Burma border. Her parents had fled from Burmese soldiers who tortured, raped, and killed her native Karen people. After more than 20 years living in danger, she and her family were able to resettle in the United States last year.

Zeyad Abdel Okhowa fled Iraq with his family after his work with the U.S. Embassy in Al Hillah put him in danger. Today, he works with the State Department's Digital Outreach Team to help improve understanding between Arab and Muslim communities and the United States.

Rose Mapendo's husband was executed, and she and her children were imprisoned in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She gave birth to twins while she was in jail, and she struggled to keep them alive. Rose and her children fled the Congo on an emergency evacuation flight in 2000. Today, she's an American citizen and the spokesperson for "Mapendo International," a non-governmental organization that assists refugees.

The inclusion of an Iraqi was significant, because it gave some visibility to the huge displacement crisis that has taken place within Iraq. Some five million Iraqis are displaced, about half are refugees who have fled to nearby countries, while the rest are displaced within Iraq. So far President Bush has said nothing in public to acknowledge the displacement, which has humanitarian and security implications for the entire Middle East. Maybe Mrs. Bush will fill him in.

--Ken Bacon

World Refugee Day: Where are the world's hidden refugees?

Picture these iconic refugee images - an African woman, holding a child, gazing stoically into the camera against a backdrop of huts and tents in a barren landscape. A long line of people, men, women, and children - again, usually African - on the move with all their worldly possessions on their heads and their backs. An emaciated African child being examined in a clinic by a Western doctor or nurse in a vest with a red cross emblem.

These images have become iconic because for several decades they have encapsulated the plight of refugees. But this World Refugee Day is an opportunity to reflect on the ways these images don't really to justice to today's realities.

While conflicts in Africa continue to displace hundreds of thousands of people, this year the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, is highlighting the fact that refugee numbers have increased from 10 million to nearly 12 million due to the persistence of refugee crises in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While the Afghan presence in Pakistan and Iran, still numbering 3 million, has been a reality for decades, Iraqi displacement increased in 2007, with 600,000 newly displaced internally and still more fleeing into neighbouring countries in the Middle East, especially Syria and Jordan. In all, nearly half of the refugees of concern to UNHCR are from Iraq and Afghanistan alone.

The reality of the lives of Iraqi refugees requires further adjustment of our refugee iconography.
Iraqi refugees are not in camps. They live, virtually invisible, in urban areas, especially in Damascus and Amman.

They are hard to reach with basic services. Some, fearing eventual deportation, avoid registering with UNHCR. They gradually draw on whatever savings they may have brought with them from Iraq. Some try to find illegal employment in low-paying jobs in the informal sector.

Their children have had their schooling disrupted, though after extensive efforts, special international funding has been granted to support the inclusion of some Iraqi children in the school systems of the host countries.

The phenomenon of urban refugees is growing. Among the more than 1 million Zimbabweans outside their country in southern Africa are tens of thousands of people who could qualify as refugees living an underground existence in urban areas of South Africa and Zambia.

In Southeast Asia, host countries largely bar Burmese from accessing refugee camps, leaving them to fend for themselves in urban centres such as Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur.

In Latin America, political violence drives the internally displaced of Colombia out of rural areas and into towns, where they live unregistered on the margins of society.

The growth in the number of urban refugees coincides with two other developments: the overall erosion in the commitment of states to asylum for those fleeing persecution and conflict and large-scale economic migration. The twin fears of terrorist infiltration and inundation from illegal immigration have combined to create an environment in which countries of first asylum assume the worst when individuals seeking protection arrive on their door step.

Meanwhile, there are an estimated 200 million people now living outside their country of origin, and only a portion of this migration is from poor countries of the global South to the industrialised world.

With high levels of economic imbalance within developing regions and with poverty often associated with internal conflict and human rights abuses, refugee flows amidst the movement of economic migrants are a common phenomenon within the South.

China, Thailand, Malaysia, India, South Africa, Kenya, and Egypt are among countries that are magnets both for individuals fleeing persecution and for those seeking employment and greater economic opportunity.

These developments combine to pose special challenges for protecting the world's 12 million refugees. While camps will still be required and appropriate in some places - in Chad, for example, to shelter refugees from Darfur - the trend will be for more and more refugees to find themselves either forcibly or voluntarily trying to survive among the underclass in urban areas.

UNHCR and the non-governmental organisations that provide services with its support will have to adjust the way they work.

First and foremost, refugees need to be found. This means being sending teams into urban areas and reaching out, like social workers, to identify vulnerable refugees and register them.

It also involves talking to government officials, who need to be convinced that within the mass of urban poor and illegal migrants there are people who qualify for international protection. Ensuring legal status also goes a long way towards preventing statelessness for current and future generations.

UNHCR will need to find creative ways of providing assistance to vulnerable people. Local religious institutions and community-based organisations should play an important role in delivering the aid, but they will need funding.

Providing cash or vouchers to individual families, who in turn will choose how to spend the funds, is more effective than setting up feeding centers or special schools and health facilities.

To its credit, UNHCR recognises the challenges inherent in the evolving nature of refugee flows and the response of host countries to their needs for asylum. But experience suggests that it will need time to shift its approach.

It can only help if donor government officials and the general public adjust their own perspectives too, and start to understand the diversity of refugee experiences today.

--Joel Charny

Joel's post is part of Reuters AlertNet's World Refugee Day feature. For more information, visit www.alertnet.org

World Refugee Day: Confronting the Iraq Refugee Crisis

Today nearly five million Iraqis--20% of the population--are displaced. About half of them have fled the country and live as refugees throughout the Middle East, while the rest are displaced within Iraq. Most fled their homes because they felt unsafe; those who worked for the U.S. as translators or drivers fled after they were attacked as collaborators. Most refugees and internally displaced lack access to employment, education and medical care; they are facing shortages of food and money.

This is a humanitarian crisis first, but it is also becoming a security problem.

Refugees International recently issued a report that found that internally displaced Iraqis were turning increasingly to militia groups, not the government, for support. "As a result of the vacuum created by the failure of both the Iraqi Government and the international community to act in a timely and adequate manner, non-state actors play a major role in providing assistance to vulnerable Iraqis," the report, Uprooted and Unstable, said. "Through a 'Hezbollah-like' scheme, the Shiite Sadrist movement has established itself as the main service provider in the country."

Militias, not the government, are winning the loyalty of aid recipients. This poses an obvious threat to what the U.S. most wants in Iraq--a stable, peaceful country run by a publicly supported government under the rule of law.

Yet the U.S. seems strangely casual about the impact of massive displacement in and from Iraq. President Bush has never mentioned the plight of displaced Iraqis, and other White House officials act as though the problem doesn't exist. The State Department's June 11 Iraq Weekly Status Report barely mentions Iraqi displacement.

The State Department is far from tone deaf to the plight of displaced Iraqis, particularly those who have worked for the United States. Secretary Rice has appointed an ambassador, James B. Foley, as Senior Coordinator for Iraqi Refugee Issues. At a press conference earlier this month, Foley said that "we believe that we have special obligations to Iraqis who have been employed by the United States or have been closely associated with U.S. efforts in Iraq." Yet most of the pressure to help these so-called Iraqi allies has come from Congress, not the administration.
The United States has vowed to allow 12,000 Iraqis to resettle in the U.S. this year, but eight months into the fiscal year, it has resettled only 4,742. Reaching the goal is still possible, if everything goes right.

What's more, the United States will spend more than $200 million this year to help displaced Iraqis. Unfortunately, that is just a drop in the bucket compared to what it costs surrounding countries to host Iraqi refugees. Jordan says it is laying out about $1 billion a year to accommodate about 500,000 Iraqis, and Syria, which hosts about l.5 million, says the cost is several billion dollars a year.

The surge has reduced violence in Iraq, but not enough to enable safe return of displaced Iraqis. Until it does, the United States needs to pay more attention to meeting the needs of nearly five million displaced Iraqis whose loyalty will be won by those who help them.

--Ken Bacon

In honor of World Refugee Day, UN Dispatch's Delegates Lounge will be featuring Ken's post for the coming week.