The State of the World's Refugees 2006 - Chapter 5 Protracted refugee situations: Nature and scope of the problem

The difficulty of defining protracted refugee situations has arguably frustrated efforts to formulate effective policy responses, and a more detailed understanding of the global scope and importance of the problem is clearly necessary. UNHCR defines a protracted refugee situation as 'one in which refugees find themselves in a long-lasting and intractable state of limbo. Their lives may not be at risk, but their basic rights and essential economic, social and psychological needs remain unfulfilled after years in exile. A refugee in this situation is often unable to break free from enforced reliance on external assistance'.[4]

In identifying the major protracted refugee situations in the world in 2004, UNHCR used the 'crude measure of refugee populations of 25,000 persons or more who have been in exile for five or more years in developing countries'.[5] The study excluded Palestinian refugees, who fall under the mandate of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), and represent the world's oldest and largest protracted refugee situation.

The definition above accurately describes the condition of many refugees in protracted situations. What it does not reflect is that many of these refugees are actively engaged in seeking solutions for themselves, either through political and military activities in their countries of origin or through onward migration to the West. Furthermore, evidence from Africa and Asia demonstrates that while population numbers in a particular protracted situation may remain relatively stable over time, the composition of a population often changes.

A definition of protracted refugee situations should therefore include not only the humanitarian elements of the phenomenon but also its political and strategic aspects. In addition, a definition must recognize that countries of origin, host countries and the international community are all implicated in the causes of protracted refugee situations.

In protracted situations, refugee populations have moved beyond the emergency phase – where the focus is on life-saving protection and assistance – but cannot expect durable solutions in the foreseeable future. These populations are typically, but not necessarily, concentrated in a specific geographic area, and may include camp-based and urban-refugee populations. The nature of a protracted situation will be the result of conditions in the refugees' country of origin, the responses of and conditions in the host countries and the level of engagement by the international community. Furthermore, as the experience of the Sudanese refugees scattered across eight African countries indicates, members of the same displaced group in different host countries will experience different conditions.

Politically, the identification of a protracted refugee situation is a matter of perception. If a displaced population is seen to have existed for a significant period of time without the prospect of solutions, then it may be termed a protracted refugee situation. Indeed, it is important that the crude measure of 25,000 refugees in exile for five years should not be used as a basis for excluding other groups. For example, of the Rohingya who fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh 12 years ago, 20,000 still remain. Similarly, there are 19,000 Burundians in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 16,000 Somalis in Ethiopia, 19,000 Mauritanians in Senegal, 15,000 Ethiopians in Sudan and 19,000 Rwandans in Uganda.

Long-staying urban refugees are not typically included in an understanding of protracted refugee situations. Yet tens of thousands live clandestinely in urban areas, avoiding contact with the authorities and bereft of legal status. There are almost 40,000 Congolese urban refugees in Burundi, more than 36,000 Somali urban refugees in Yemen and almost 15,000 Sudanese urban refugees in Egypt. Nearly 10,000 Afghan urban refugees live in India and more than 5,000 Liberian urban refugees remain in Côte d'Ivoire. These are only some of the largest caseloads. In addition, there are hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees throughout the Middle East.

Trends in protracted refugee situations

Chronic and stagnating refugee situations are a growing challenge for the international community. Their total number has increased dramatically over the past decade, and host states and regions of origin feel their effects more keenly. More significantly, protracted refugee situations now account for the vast majority of the world's refugee population.

During the 1990s, a number of long-standing refugee groups that had been displaced by Cold War conflicts in the developing world went home. In southern Africa, large groups of Mozambicans, Namibians and others were repatriated. In Indochina, Cambodians in exile in Thailand returned home, while Vietnamese and Laotians were resettled in third countries. With the end of fighting in Central America, the vast majority of displaced Nicaraguans, Guatemalans and Salvadorans returned to their countries.

Nonetheless, in 1993 there remained 27 protracted refugee situations and a total population of 7.9 million refugees. Indeed, even as older refugee populations were being repatriated, new intra-state conflicts resulted in massive refugee flows. Conflict and state collapse in Somalia, the Great Lakes region of Africa, Liberia and Sierra Leone in the 1990s generated millions of refugees. Millions more were displaced by ethnic and civil conflict in Iraq, the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia. As the global refugee population mushroomed in the early 1990s, the pressing need was to respond to the challenges of simultaneous mass influx situations in many regions of the world.

More than a decade later, many of these conflicts and refugee situations remain unresolved. Indeed, the number of protracted refugee situations now is greater than at the end of the Cold War. In 2004 there were 33 protracted refugee situations with a total refugee population of more than 5.5 million (see Figure 5.1). While there are fewer refugees in protracted situations today, the number of such situations has greatly increased. In addition, refugees are spending longer periods in exile. It is estimated that 'the average of major refugee situations, protracted or not, has increased from nine years in 1993 to 17 years at the end of 2003'.[6]

In 1993, 48 per cent of the world's 16.3 million refugees were caught in protracted situations. At the end of 2004, the number of refugees had come down to 9.2 million – but more than 61 per cent of them were in protracted situations. And, as illustrated by Map 5.1, they are found in some of the most volatile regions in the world.

East and West Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Middle East are all plagued by protracted refugee situations. Sub-Saharan Africa has the largest number, with 17, involving 1.9 million refugees. The countries hosting the biggest groups are Guinea, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. In contrast, the geographical area covering Central Asia, South West Asia, North Africa and the Middle East hosts only eight major protracted situations but nonetheless accounts for

2.5 million refugees. At the end of 2004 the overwhelming majority of these – approximately 2 million – were Afghans in Pakistan and Iran. In Asia (China, Thailand, India and Nepal) there are five protracted situations and some 676,000 refugees. Europe faces three major protracted situations involving 510,000 refugees, primarily in the Balkans and Armenia.

Causes of protracted refugee situations

Long-standing refugee populations originate from the very states whose instability lies at the heart of chronic regional insecurity. Most of the refugees in these regions – be they Somalis, Sudanese, Burundians, Liberians, Iraqis, Afghans or Burmese – come from countries where conflict and persecution have persisted for years.

While there is increasing recognition that international policy-makers must pay closer attention to these countries of origin, it is also clear that resolving refugee situations must be a central part of any solution to long-standing regional conflicts. It is essential to recognize that chronic and unresolved refugee situations have political causes, and therefore require more than humanitarian solutions.

Protracted refugee situations stem from political action and inaction, both in the country of origin (the persecution and violence that led to flight) and in the country of asylum.[7] These situations are the combined result of the prevailing conditions in the country of origin, the policy responses of the country of asylum and the lack of sufficient donor engagement. They arise when peace and security actors fail to address conflict or human rights violations in the country of origin and donor governments do not help the host country. Failure to address the situation in the country of origin means that refugees cannot return home; a reluctance to aid the host country reinforces the perception of refugees as a burden and a security concern, leading to encampment and a lack of local solutions. Humanitarian agencies are then left to shoulder the burden.

The protracted presence of Somali refugees in East Africa and the Horn, for instance, is the result of the failed intervention in Somalia in the early 1990s and the inability of the international community to help rebuild a failed state. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees have been in exile in the region for more than a decade. In the face of increasingly restrictive host-state policies, humanitarian agencies are left responsible for the care and maintenance of the refugees.

The failure of the international community and regional players to consolidate peace can generate a resurgence of conflict and displacement, leading to a recurrence of protracted refugee situations. For example, the return of Liberians from neighbouring West African states in the aftermath of the 1997 elections in Liberia was not sustainable. A renewal of conflict in late 1999 and early 2000 led not only to a suspension of the repatriation of Liberian refugees from Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire and other states in the region, it also gave rise to a massive new refugee exodus. Following the departure into exile of Liberian strongman Charles Taylor in 2003, there has been a renewed emphasis on return for the hundreds of thousands of Liberian refugees in the region. Though large-scale facilitated repatriation began in late 2004, it does not appear as if the lessons of the late 1990s have been learned. Donor support for the demobilization and reintegration of Liberian combatants has been limited, and there is growing fear of fresh conflict as former combatants are again being recruited into rival factions.

As these examples illustrate, the primary causes of protracted refugee situations are to be found in the failure to engage in countries of origin and the failure to consolidate peace agreements. These examples also demonstrate how humanitarian programmes have to be underpinned by enduring political and security measures if they are to result in lasting solutions for refugees. Assistance to refugees in protracted situations is no substitute for sustained political and strategic action. More generally, the international community cannot expect humanitarian actors to resolve protracted refugee situations without the sustained engagement of the peace, security and development agencies.

Declining donor support for long-standing refugee populations in host countries has also contributed to the rise in protracted refugee situations. A marked decrease in financial contributions to these groups has security implications, as refugees and local populations begin to compete for scarce resources. The lack of donor support has also reinforced the perception of refugees as a burden on host states, which now argue that the displaced put additional pressure on the environment, services, infrastructure and the local economy. With the international community less willing to share the burden, host countries are reluctant to find local solutions to protracted refugee situations.

This trend first emerged in the mid-1990s, when UNHCR experienced budget shortfalls of tens of millions of dollars. These shortfalls were most acutely felt in Africa, where contributions to both development assistance and humanitarian programmes fell throughout the 1990s. Of greater concern is the tendency of donor governments to give vastly disproportionate amounts of aid to a few cases in the media glare and far less to dozens of other less-publicized refugee caseloads.[8] Declining donor engagement with long-standing refugee populations, or donor fatigue, has left many host states with fewer resources with which to address the needs of refugees and respond to increased pressure on local environments and services. According to UNHCR, 71 per cent of the world's asylum seekers, refugees and others of concern to the agency were hosted in developing countries at the end of 2004.[9] Given that these states are themselves heavily dependent on official development assistance to meet the needs of their own citizens, the additional burden of large refugee populations becomes all the more significant. Such concerns are exacerbated by the pressures of externally imposed democratization, economic liberalization and rising local expectations.

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Introduction

Human rights implications

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Notes

4. Ibid., p. 1.

5. Ibid., p. 2.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid., p. 1.

8. For example, in 1999 it was reported that UNHCR spent about US$0.11 per refugee per day in Africa, compared to an average of US$1.23 per refugee per day in the Balkans. See: G. Loescher, The UNHCR in World Politics, p. 322; J. Vidal, 'Blacks Need, but Only Whites Receive: Race Appears to Be Skewing the West's Approach to Aid', The Guardian (UK), 12 August 1999.

9. See US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, World Refugee Survey 2005, Washington DC, US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, 2005, p. 13.