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UNHCR publication for CIS Conference (Displacement in the CIS) - Central Asia on the move
1 May 1996 Central Asia is an astonishing ethnic mosaic, partly as a result of the deportations and other large influxes during the Soviet period. The region has experienced one civil war, and two smaller inter-ethnic conflicts. Because of these and other pressures, around one in 12 of the region's inhabitants has moved since 1989. -
UNHCR publication for CIS Conference (Displacement in the CIS) - Ecological disasters: the human cost
1 May 1996 The USSR left behind numerous heavily contaminated or polluted industrial, agricultural and nuclear sites. The three worst hit areas - Chernobyl, the Aral Sea and the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site - have already produced more than 700,000 ecological migrants, as well as very serious health concerns for those who remain. -
UNHCR publication for CIS Conference (Displacement in the CIS) - Punished peoples: the mass deportations of the 1940s
1 May 1996 Between 1936 and 1952, 3 million people were rounded up from their homes along the USSR's western borders and dumped thousands of miles away in Siberia and Central Asia. Fifty years later, some are still trying to get back. -
UNHCR publication for CIS Conference (Displacement in the CIS) - Transit migrants and trafficking
1 May 1996 -
UNHCR publication for CIS Conference (Displacement in the CIS) - Conflicts in the Caucasus
1 May 1996 The Caucasus has experienced five major conflicts, creating more than 2 million refugees and internally displaced people. While most of the conflicts are relatively quiescent, none of them appears close to finding a lasting solution. Hundreds of thousands continue to live in temporary shelter. -
UNHCR publication for CIS Conference (Displacement in the CIS) - About this publication
1 May 1996 The full name of this conference (held in Geneva on 30-31 May 1996) is "Regional Conference to Address the Problems of Refugees, Displaced Persons, Other Forms of Involuntary Displacement and Returnees in the Countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States and Relevant Neighbouring States." For the sake of brevity, it is referred to in these articles as the CIS Conference. -
UNHCR publication for CIS Conference (Displacement in the CIS) - Forced to move by war or circumstance
1 May 1996 The disintegration of the Soviet Union has given rise to the largest, most complex, involuntary movements of people since World War II. Some 9 million people have left their homes in CIS countries for a variety of reasons, several of them unique to the region. -
UNHCR publication for CIS Conference (Displacement in the CIS) - The CIS Conference on Refugees and Migrants
1 May 1996 The CIS Conference process is the first attempt by the international community to grapple comprehensively with the huge, unprecedentedly complex and destabilizing movements taking place in the countries of the CIS. -
UNHCR publication for CIS Conference (Displacement in the CIS) - Orphans of the USSR: the return of the Slavs
1 May 1996 When the Soviet Union broke up, some 34 million Russians, Ukranians and Belarusians, no longer sure whether they were at home or abroad, began to feel insecure in the newly independent republics where they were residing. By 1996, over 3 million had returned to their ethnic homelands, creating severe economic strains at both ends.