refugee n : an exile who flees for safety

English

Etymology

From réfugié, past participle of réfugier ("to take refuge"), describing early French protestants seeking refuge.

Pronunciation

• IPA:

  Rhymes: -iː

Noun

1. a person seeking refuge in a foreign country out of fear of political persecution or the prospect of such persecution in his home country, i.e., a person seeking a political asylum
2. a person seeking refuge in a foreign country due to poverty and no prospect of overcoming said poverty in his home country, i.e., a person seeking an economic asylum
3. a person seeking refuge due to a natural disaster
4. a person formally granted a political or economic asylum by a country other than his home country

Translations

Derived terms

• reffo
• refugeehood

See also

• asylum
• economic asylum
• political asylum
• refuge

A refugee is a person who "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of their nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail him/herself of the protection of that country" (according to all the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees). ''Every person has the right to live free from persecution, or the fear of persecution, based on their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. Though every government is obligated to provide this right, many fail. Every year millions of people face persecution for traits they cannot control or exercising their religious or political beliefs. When governments fail to protect these rights, people have the right to move to a country that will protect them. This is the right to asylum. People who seek to exercise this right are called "asylum seekers" or, in some cases, "refugees." In 1951, the formal basis for exercising the right to asylum was established by an international treaty, the Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Countries signing that Convention have an obligation to provide asylum or refuge to people fleeing persecution.''

The concept of a refugee was expanded by the Conventions’ 1967 Protocol and by regional conventions in Africa and Latin America to include persons who had fled war or other violence in their home country. A person who is seeking to be recognized as a refugee is an asylum seeker. In the United States a recognized asylum seeker is known as an asylee.

Refugee was defined as a legal group in response to the large numbers of people fleeing Eastern Europe following World War II. The lead international agency coordinating refugee protection is the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which counted 8.4 million refugees worldwide at the beginning of 2006. This was the lowest number since 1980. The major exception is the 4.3 million Palestinian refugees under the authority of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), who are the only group to be granted refugee status to the descendants of refugees according to the above definition. The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants gives the world total as 12,019,700 refugees and estimates there are over 34,000,000 displaced by war, including internally displaced persons, who remain within the same national borders. The majority of refugees who leave their country seek asylum in countries neighboring their country of nationality. The "durable solutions" to refugee populations, as defined by UNHCR and governments, are: voluntary repatriation to the country of origin; local integration into the country of asylum; and resettlement to a third country.

As of December 31, 2005, the largest source countries of refugees are the Palestinian Territories, Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar, and Sudan. The country with the largest number of IDPs is Sudan, with over 5 million. According to UNHCR estimates, over 4.2 million Iraqis have been displaced since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, with 2 million within Iraq and 2.2 million in neighbouring countries. At least 60,000 Iraqis are losing their homes and becoming refugees every month.

History

The concept of sanctuary, in the meaning that a person who fled into a holy place could not be harmed without inviting divine retribution, was understood by the ancient Greeks and ancient Egyptians. However, the right to seek asylum in a church or other holy place, was first codified in law by King Ethelbert of Kent in about 600 A.D. Similar laws were implemented throughout Europe in the Middle Ages. The related concept of political exile also has a long history: Ovid was sent to Tomis and Voltaire was exiled to England. Through the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, nations recognized each others' sovereignty. However, it was not until the advent of romantic nationalism in late eighteenth century Europe that nationalism became prevalent enough that the phrase "country of nationality" became meaningful and people crossing borders were required to provide identification.

A refugee is a person who has to leave their home. For something like bombing or government. There are refugee camps were refugees can stay. Then they can be shifted to a different place.

The term "refugee" is sometimes applied to people who may have fit the definition, if the 1951 Convention was applied retroactively. There are many candidates. For example, after the Edict of Fontainebleau in 1685 outlawed Protestantism in France, hundreds of thousands of Huguenots fled to England, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark and Prussia. Various groups of people were officially designated refugees beginning in World War I.

The first international coordination on refugee affairs was by the League of Nations' High Commission for Refugees. The Commission, led by Fridtjof Nansen, was set up in 1921 to assist the approximately 1,500,000 persons who fled the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent civil war (1917–1921), most of them aristocrats fleeing the Communist government. In 1923, the mandate of the Commission was expanded to include the more than one million Armenians who left Turkish Asia Minor in 1915 and 1923 due to a series of events now known as the Armenian Genocide. Over the next several years, the mandate was expanded to include Assyrians and Turkish refugees. In all of these cases, a refugee was defined as a person in a group for which the League of Nations had approved a mandate, as opposed to a person to whom a general definition applied.

The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey involved some two million people, most forcibly made refugees and de jure denaturalized from homelands of centuries or millennia, in a treaty promoted and overseen by the international community as part of the Treaty of Lausanne.

In 1930, the Nansen International Office for Refugees was established as a successor agency to the Commission. Its most notable achievement was the Nansen passport, a passport for refugees, for which it was awarded the 1938 Nobel Peace Prize. The Nansen Office was plagued by inadequate funding, rising numbers of refugees and the refusal by League members to let the Office assist their own citizens. Regardless, it managed to convince fourteen nations to sign the Refugee Convention of 1933, a weak human right instrument, and assist over one million refugees. The rise of Nazism led to such a severe rise in refugees from Germany that in 1933 the League created a High Commission for Refugees Coming from Germany. The mandate of this High Commission was subsequently expanded to include persons from Austria and Sudetenland. On 31 December 1938, both the Nansen Office and High Commission were dissolved and replaced by the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees under the Protection of the League.

World War II and UNHCR

The conflict and political instability during World War II led to massive amounts of forced migration. In 1943, the Allies created the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) to provide aid to areas liberated from Axis powers, including parts of Europe and China. This included returning over seven million refugees, then commonly referred to as displaced persons or DPs, to their country of origin and setting up displaced persons camps for one million refugees who refused to be repatriated.

After the defeat of Germany in World War II, the Potsdam Conference authorized the expulsion of the German population from a number of European countries (including Soviet- and Polish-annexed pre-war East Germany), meaning that 12,000,000 ethnic Germans were displaced to the reallocated and divided territory of Allied-occupied Germany. Between the end of World War II and the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961, more than 563,700 refugees from East Germany traveled to West Germany for asylum from the Soviet occupation.

Also, millions of former Russian citizens were forcefully repatriated (against their will) into the USSR. On 11 February 1945, at the conclusion of the Yalta Conference, the United States and United Kingdom signed a Repatriation Agreement with the USSR. The interpretation of this Agreement resulted in the forcible repatriation of all Soviets regardless of their wishes. When the war ended in May 1945, British and U.S. civilian authorities ordered their military forces in Europe to deport to the Soviet Union millions of former residents of the USSR, including numerous persons who had left Russia and established different citizenship many years before. The forced repatriation operations took place from 1945-1947.

At the time, UNRRA was shut down in 1949 and its refugee tasks given to the International Refugee Organization (IRO). The International Refugee Organization was a temporary organization of the United Nations (UN), which itself had been founded in 1945, with a mandate to largely finish the UNRRA's work of repatriating or resettling European refugees. It was dissolved in 1952 after resettling about one million refugees. The definition of a refugee at this time was an individual with either a Nansen passport or a "Certificate of Eligibility" issued by the International Refugee Organization.

At the end of the World War II, there were more than 5 million "displaced persons" from the Soviet Union in the Western Europe. About 3 million had been forced laborers (Ostarbeiters) in Germany and occupied territories. The Soviet POWs and the Vlasov men were put under the jurisdiction of SMERSH (Death to Spies). Of the 5.7 million Soviet prisoners of war captured by the Germans, 3.5 million had died while in German captivity by the end of the war. The survivors on their return to the USSR were treated as traitors (see Order No. 270). Over 1.5 million surviving Red Army soldiers imprisoned by the Germans were sent to the Gulag.

At the time, UNRRA was shut down in 1949 and its refugee tasks given to the International Refugee Organization (IRO).

At the time, UNRRA was shut down in 1949 and its refugee tasks given to the International Refugee Organization (IRO).

Japan accepted just 16 refugees in 1999, while the United States took in 85,010 for resettlement, according to the UNHCR. New Zealand, which is smaller than Japan, accepted 1,140 refugees in 1999. Amnesty International Japan said in January that the country is violating international refugee and anti-torture conventions, citing the case of an Iranian applicant who was arrested days after being deported in October. A Japanese court rejected the asylum request from a gay Iranian who faced the death penalty if his sexual orientation was discovered in his homeland.

Boat people

The term "boat people" came into common use in the 1970s with the mass exodus of Vietnamese refugees following the Vietnam War. It is a widely used form of migration for people migrating from Cuba, Haiti, Morocco, Vietnam or Albania. They often risk their lives on dangerously crude and overcrowded boats to escape oppression or poverty in their home nations. Events resulting from the Vietnam War led many people in Cambodia, Laos, and especially Vietnam to become refugees in the late 1970s and 1980s. In 2001, 353 asylum seekers sailing from Indonesia to Australia drowned when their vessel sank.

The main danger to a boat person is that the boat he or she is sailing in may actually be anything that floats and is large enough for passengers. Although such makeshift craft can result in tragedy, in 2003 a small group of 5 Cuban refugees attempted (unsuccessfully, but un-harmed) to reach Florida in a 1950s pickup truck made buoyant by oil barrels strapped to its sides.

Boat people are frequently a source of controversy in the nation they seek to immigrate to, such as the United States, Canada, Italy, Spain and Australia. Boat people are often forcibly prevented from landing at their destination, such as under Australia's Pacific Solution, or they are subjected to mandatory detention after their arrival.

Historical and contemporary refugee crises

Refugee situations in the Middle East

Palestinian refugees

details Palestinian refugees

Following the 1948 proclamation of the State of Israel, the first Arab-Israeli War began. Many Palestinians had already become refugees, and the Palestinian Exodus (Nakba) continued through the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and after the armistice that ended it. The great majority haven't remained refugees for generations as they were not permitted to return to their homes or to settle in the Arab countries where they lived. The refugee situation and the presence of numerous refugee camps continues to be a point of contention in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The final estimate of refugee numbers was 711,000 according to the United Nations Conciliation Commission. Palestinian refugees from 1948 and their descendants do not come under the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, but under the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which created its own criteria for refugee classification. From the UNRWA web site: Palestine refugees are persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict. UNRWA's services are availabsup le to all those living in its area of operations who meet this definition, who are registered with the Agency and who need assistance. UNRWA's definition of a refugee also covers the descendants of persons who became refugees in 1948.

As such they are the only refugee population legally defined to include descendants of refugees, as well as others who might otherwise be considered internally displaced persons.

As of December 2005, the World Refugee Survey of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants estimates the total number of Palestinian refugees to be 2,966,100.

Jewish refugees

details Jewish refugees

Between the first and second world wars, Jewish immigration to Palestine was encouraged by the nascent Zionist movement but was severely restricted by the British Mandate government in Palestine. In Europe, Nazi persecution culminated in the Holocaust and the mass murder of many European Jews. The Evian Conference, Bermuda Conference, and others failed to resolve the problem of finding a home for large numbers of Jewish refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe. Following its formation in 1948, Israel adopted the Law of Return, granting Israeli citizenship to any Jewish immigrant. Approximately 700,000 refugees flooded into the country, and were housed in tent cities called ma'abarot. After the dissolution of the USSR, a second surge of 700,000 Russian Jews fled to Israel between 1990 and 1995.

Jews have lived in what are now Arab states at least since the Babylonian captivity (597 BCE). The refusal of the Arab world to accept the existence of a Jewish state led to discrimination and violence against the Jews. In 1948, the Arab League declared the Jews enemy citizens. Jewish bank accounts and property was confiscated, Jews were arrested and fired from their jobs, and synagogues were attacked. In the early years after Israeli independence the number of Jews in Arab countries fell steeply: in Yemen, from 55,000 to 4,000; in Iraq from 135,000 to 6,000; in Aden from 8,000 to 800; in Egypt from 80,000 to 50,000; in Libya from 38,000 to 4,000; and in Syria from 30,000 to 5,000. . ''Some 600 Sudanese infiltrators, who escaped from Darfur (...) have received an official refugee status, which is granted following a government decision according to a United Nations recommendation. Another 2,000 infiltrators, who arrived from Eritrea, also received temporary resident IDs, for "humanitarian" reasons according to the government, but not as refugees. (...) Israel refuses to recognize them as refugees due to the Jewish state's good relations with both African countries''.

Lebanese Civil War

It is estimated that some 900,000 people, representing one-fifth of the pre-war population, were displaced from their homes during the Lebanese Civil War (1975-90).

Western Sahara

It is estimated that more than 150,000 Sahrawis - people from the disputed territory of Western Sahara - have lived in five large refugee camps near Tindouf in the Algerian part of the Sahara Desert since 1975. The UNHCR and WFP are presently engaged in supporting what they describe as the "90,000 most vulnerable" refugees, giving no estimate for total refugee numbers.

Nagorno Karabakh

The Nagorno Karabakh conflict has resulted in the displacement of 528,000 (this figure does not include new born children of these IDPs) Azerbaijanis from Armenian occupied territories including Nagorno Karabakh, and 220,000 Azeris and 18,000 Kurds fled from Armenia to Azerbaijan from 1988 to 1989. 280,000 persons—virtually all ethnic Armenians—fled Azerbaijan during the 1988–1993 war over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Turkey

Between 1984 and 1999, the PKK and the Turkish military engaged in open war, and much of the countryside in the southeast was depopulated, with Kurdish civilians moving to local defensible centers such as Diyarbakır, Van, and Şırnak, as well as to the cities of western Turkey and even to western Europe. The causes of the depopulation included PKK atrocities against Kurdish clans they could not control, the poverty of the southeast, and the Turkish state's military operations. Human Rights Watch has documented many instances where the Turkish military forcibly evacuated villages, destroying houses and equipment to prevent the return of the inhabitants. An estimated 3,000 Kurdish villages in Turkey were virtually wiped from the map, representing the displacement of more than 378,000 people.

Refugees from the Iraq wars

The Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 1988, the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the first Gulf War and subsequent conflicts all generated hundreds of thousands if not millions of refugees. Iran also provided asylum for 1,400,000 Iraqi refugees who had been uprooted as a result of the Persian Gulf War (1990–91). At least one million Iraqi Kurds were displaced during the Al-Anfal Campaign (1986-1989).

The current Iraq war has generated millions of refugees and internally displaced persons. As of 2007 more Iraqis have lost their homes and become refugees than the population of any other country. Over 4,200,000 people, more than 16% of the Iraqi population, have become uprooted. Of these, about 2.2 million have fled Iraq and flooded other countries, and 2 million are estimated to be refugees inside Iraq, with nearly 100,000 Iraqis fleeing to Syria and Jordan each month.

Roughly 40% of Iraq's middle class is believed to have fled, the U.N. said. Most are fleeing systematic persecution and have no desire to return. All kinds of people, from university professors to bakers, have been targeted by militias, insurgents and criminals. An estimated 331 school teachers were slain in the first four months of 2006, according to Human Rights Watch, and at least 2,000 Iraqi doctors have been killed and 250 kidnapped since the 2003 U.S. invasion. Iraqi refugees in Syria and Jordan live in impoverished communities with little international attention to their plight and little legal protection. In Syria alone an estimated 50,000 Iraqi girls and women, many of them widows, are forced into prostitution just to survive.

According to Washington based Refugees International, out of the 4.2 million refugees fewer than 800 have been allowed into the US since the 2003 invasion. Sweden had accepted 18,000 and Australia had resettled almost 6,000. As many as 110,000 Iraqis could be targeted as collaborators because of their work for coalition forces.

As of September 2007 Syria had decided to implement a strict visa regime to limit the number of Iraqis entering the country at up to 5,000 per day, cutting the only accessible escape route for thousands of refugees fleeing the civil war in Iraq. A government decree that took effect on 10 September 2007 bars Iraqi passport holders from entering Syria except for businessmen and academics. Until then, the Syria was the only country to had resisted strict entry regulations for Iraqis.

Religious minorities in the Middle East

Although Assyrian Christians represent less than 5% of the total Iraqi population, they make up 40% of the refugees now living in nearby countries, according to U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. In the 16th century, Christians were half the population of Iraq. In 1987, the last Iraqi census counted 1.4 million Christians. But as the current war has radicalized Islamic sensibilities, Christians have seen their total numbers slump to about 500,000 today, of whom 250,000 live in Baghdad.

The US government position on refugees states that there is repression of religious minorities in the Middle East and in Pakistan such as Christians, Hindus, as well as Ahmadi, and Zikri denominations of Islam. In Sudan where Islam is the state religion, Muslims dominate the Government and restrict activities of Christians, practitioners of traditional African indigenous religions and other non-Muslimshttp://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2005/51662.htm. The question of Jewish, Christian and other refugees from Arab and Muslim countries was introduced in March 2007 in the US congresshttp://www.cjnews.com/viewarticle.asp?id=11342.

In the Islamic republic of Iran, Iranian Christians decry minority religions' lack of freedom in Islamic countries http://www.iranchristians.org/prayer.shtml, while Bahá'ís are also fleeing religious persecution http://www.uga.edu/bahai/News/102800.html.

Refugee movements in Asia

Afghanistan

From the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 through the early 1990s, the Afghan War (1978–92) caused more than six million refugees to flee to the neighboring countries of Pakistan and Iran, making Afghanistan the greatest refugee-producing country. At the peak of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, close to seven million Afghan refugees sought refuge within Pakistan, making Pakistan the only country to have hosted such a huge number of refugees. The number of refugees fluctuated with the waves of the war, with thousands more fleeing after the Taliban takeover of 1996. The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and continued ethnic cleansing and reprisals also caused additional displacement. Though there has been some repatriation sponsored by the U.N. from Iran and Pakistan, a 2007 UNHCR census identified over two million Afghan refugees still living in Pakistan alone.

Since late April 2007, the Iranian government has forcibly deported back to Afghanistan nearly 100,000 registered and unregistered Afghans living and working in Iran. The forceful evictions of the refugees, who have lived in Iran and Pakistan for nearly three decades, are part of the two countries' larger plans to repatriate all Afghan refugees within a few years. Iran says it will send one million by next March, and Pakistan announced that all 2,400,000 Afghan refugees, most living in camps, must return home by 2009. Experts say it will be 'disastrous' for Afghanistan.

The Partition of 1947

The partition of the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan in 1947 resulted in the largest human movement in history: an exchange of 18,000,000 Hindus and Sikhs (from Bangladesh-65% and Pakistan-35% ) for Muslims (from India). During the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, owing to the West Pakistani Army's Operation Searchlight, more than ten million Bengalis fled to neighboring India. [Added portion] Because of this partition, th city of Amritsar was set aflame and this event was noited it histories. [Added portion/]

Bengali refugees in India in 1971

As a result of the Bangladesh Liberation War, on 27 March 1971, Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, expressed full support of her Government to the Bangladeshi struggle for freedom. The Bangladesh-India border was opened to allow panic-stricken Bengalis safe shelter in India. The governments of West Bengal, Bihar, Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura established refugee camps along the border. Exiled Bangladeshi army officers and the Indian military immediately started using these camps for recruitment and training members of Mukti Bahini. During the Bangladesh War of Independence around 10 million Bengalis fled the country to escape the killings and atrocities committed by the Pakistan Army. Following the war, the Bangladesh government and actively supported by the Indian military indiscriminately tortured and killed thousands of Biharis who were mostly against the independence of Bangladesh. Those who survived the massacre were forced into squalid camps were they live to this day. There are between 126,000 and 159,000 Biharis who have been living in camp-like situations in Bangladesh ever since the war.

The Himalayas

There are more than 150,000 Tibetans who live in India, many in settlements in Dharamsala and Mysore, and Nepal. These include people who have escaped over the Himalayas from Tibet, as well as their children and grandchildren. In India the overwhelming majority of Tibetans born in India are still stateless and carry a document called an Identity Card issued by the Indian government in lieu of a passport. This document states the nationality of the holder as Tibetan. It is a document that is frequently rejected as a valid travel document by many customs and immigrations departments.

In 1991-92, Bhutan expelled roughly 100,000 ethnic Nepalis, most of whom have been living in seven refugee camps in eastern Nepal ever since. Talks are ongoing to resettle them in third countries, most notably the U.S.

Meanwhile, as many as 200,000 Nepalese were displaced during the Maoist insurgency and Nepalese Civil War which ended in 2006.

Sri Lankan Tamils

The civil war in Sri Lanka (1983 to the present) has generated millions of internally displaced as well as refugees. Sri Lanka Tamils have fled to India, Europe (mostly France, Denmark, the United Kingdom, and Germany), and Canada (over 800,000 people).

Kashmir

Displacement of Kashmiri Hindus living in Kashmir due to the ongoing anti-Indian insurgency. Some 300,000 Hindus have been internally displaced from Kashmir due to the violence.

Tajikistan Civil War

Since 1991, much of the country's non-Muslim population, including Russians and Jews, have fled Tajikistan due to severe poverty, instability and Tajikistan Civil War (1992–1997). In 1992, most of the country’s Jewish population was evacuated to Israel. By the end of the civil war Tajikistan was in a state of complete devastation. Around 1.2 million people were refugees inside and outside of the country.

Uzbekistan

In 1989, after bloody pogroms against the Meskhetian Turks in Central Asia's Ferghana Valley, nearly 90,000 Meskhetian Turks left Uzbekistan.

Southeast Asia

Following the communist takeovers in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos in 1975, about three million people attempted to escape in the subsequent decades. With massive influx of refugees daily, the resources of the receiving countries were severely strained. The plight of the boat people became an international humanitarian crisis. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) set up refugee camps in neighboring countries to process the boat people. The budget of the UNHCR increased from $80 million in 1975 to $500 million in 1980. Partly for its work in Indochina, the UNHCR was awarded the 1981 Nobel Peace Prize.

• Large numbers of Vietnamese refugees came into existence after 1975 when South Vietnam fell to the communist forces. Many tried to escape, some by boat, thus giving rise to the phrase "boat people." The Vietnamese refugees emigrated to Hong Kong, France, the United States, Canada, Australia, and other countries, creating sizeable expatriate communities, notably in the United States.
• Survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia fled across the border into Thailand after the Vietnamese invasion of 1978-79. Approximately 300,000 of these people were eventually resettled in the United States, France, Canada, and Australia between 1979 and 1992, when the camps were closed and the remaining people repatriated.
• The Mien or Yao recently lived in northern Vietnam, northern Laos and northern Thailand. In 1975, the Pathet Lao forces began seeking reprisal for the involvement of many Mien as soldiers in the CIA-sponsored Secret War in Laos. As a token of appreciation to the Mien and Hmong people who served in the CIA secret army, the United States accepted many of the refugees as naturalized citizens (Mien American). Many more Hmong continue to seek asylum in neighboring Thailandhttp://www.nationmultimedia.com/2006/06/07/national/national_30005937.php.
• Due to the persecution of the ethnic Karen, Karenni and other minority populations in Burma (Myanmar) significant numbers of refugees live along the Thai border in camps of up to 50,000 people.
• Muslim ethnic groups from Burma, the Rohingya and other Arakanese have been living in camps in Bangladesh since the 1990s http://hrw.org/reports/2000/burma/burm005-01.htm http://www.burmalibrary.org/show.php?cat=463.

East Asia

• The Korean War (1950–53) and the Chinese take-over of Tibet (1959) both caused the displacement of more than one million refugees.
• During the end of Chinese Civil War and Great Leap Forward thousands of Chinese escaped to Hong Kong in the 1960s.

Refugee movements in Africa

Since the 1950s, many nations in Africa have suffered civil wars and ethnic strife, thus generating a massive number of refugees of many different nationalities and ethnic groups. The division of Africa into European colonies in 1885, along which lines the newly independent nations of the 1950s and 1960s drew their borders, has been cited as a major reason why Africa has been so plagued with intrastate warfare. The number of refugees in Africa increased from 860,000 in 1968 to 6,775,000 by 1992 (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2004). By the end of 2004, that number had dropped to 2,748,400 refugees, according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees http://www.unhcr.ch/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/statistics/opendoc.pdf?tbl=STATISTICS&id=42b283744. (That figure does not include internally displaced persons, who do not cross international borders and so do not fit the official definition of refugee.)

Many refugees in Africa cross into neighboring countries to find haven; often, African countries are simultaneously countries of origin for refugees and countries of asylum for other refugees. The Democratic Republic of Congo, for instance, was the country of origin for 462,203 refugees at the end of 2004, but a country of asylum for 199,323 other refugees.

Countries in Africa from where 5,000 or more refugees originated as of the end of 2004, arranged in descending order of numbers of refugees are listed below. (UNHCR, 2004 Global Refugee Trends, Table 3.) The largest number of refugees are from Sudan and have fled either the longstanding and recently concluded Sudanese Civil War or the Darfur conflict and are located mainly in Chad, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Kenya.

Uganda

In the 1970s Uganda and other East African nations implemented racist policies that targeted the Asian population of the region. Uganda under Idi Amin's leadership was particularly most virulent in its anti-Asian policies, eventually resulting in the expulsion and ethnic cleansing of Uganda's Indian minority. Uganda's 80,000 Asians were mostly Indians born in the country. India had refused to accept them. Most of the expelled Indians eventually settled in the United Kingdom.

Great Lakes refugee crisis

In the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, over two million people fled into neighboring countries, in particular Zaire. The refugee camps were soon controlled by the former government and Hutu militants who used the camps as bases to launch attacks against the new government in Rwanda. Little action was taken to resolve the situation and the crisis did not end until Rwanda-supported rebels forced the refugees back across the border at the beginning of the First Congo War.

Darfur

Some 2.5 million, roughly one-third the population of the Darfur area, have been forced to flee their homes after attacks by Janjaweed Arab militia backed by Sudanese troops during the ongoing Darfur conflict in western Sudan.

Refugee movements within Europe

Cyprus

It is estimated that 40% of the Greek population of Cyprus, as well as over half of the Turkish Cypriot population, were displaced by the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. The figures for internally displaced Cypriots varies, the United Peacekeeping force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) estimates 165,000 Greek Cypriots and 45,000 Turkish Cypriots. The UNHCR registers slightly higher figures of 200,000 and 65,000 respectively, being partly based on official Cypriot statistics which register children of displaced families as refugees. The separation of the two communities via the UN patrolled Green Line prohibited the return of all internally displaced people.

Balkans

The forced assimilation campaign of the late 1980s directed against ethnic Turks resulted in the emigration of some 300,000 Bulgarian Turks to Turkey.

Beginning in 1991, political upheavals in the Balkans such as the breakup of Yugoslavia, displaced about 2,700,000 people by mid-1992, of which over 700,000 of them sought asylum in Europe. In 1999, about one million Albanians escaped from Serbian persecution.

Today there are still thousands of refugees and internally displaced persons in the Balkan Region who cannot return to their homes. Most of them are Serbs who cannot return to Kosovo, and who still live in refugee camps in Serbia today. Over 200,000 Serbs and other non-Albanian minorities fled or were expelled from Kosovo after the Kosovo War in 1999.

Abkhazia

The forced displacement and ethnic-cleansing of more than 250,000 people, mostly Georgians but some others too, from Abkhazia during the conflict and after in 1993 and 1998.

Chechnya

From 1992 ongoing conflict has taken place in Chechenya, Caucasus due to independence proclaimed by this republic in 1991 which is not accepted by the Russian Federation. As a consequence about 2 million people have been displaced and still cannot return to their homes.

A phenomenon referred to as 'secondary movement' describes the travelling of asylum seekers from one country of the European Union to another.

Refugee movements in the Americas

More than one million Salvadorans were displaced during the Salvadoran Civil War from 1975 to 1982. About half went to the United States, most settling in the Los Angeles area. There was also a large exodus of Guatemalans during the 1980s, trying to escape from the Civil War and genocide there as well. These people went to Southern Mexico and the U.S.

From 1991 through 1994, following the military coup d'état against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, thousands of Haitians fled violence and repression by boat. Although most were repatriated to Haiti by the U.S. government, others entered the United States as refugees. Haitians were primarily regarded as economic migrants from the grinding poverty of Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.

see also Mariel boatlift The victory of the forces led by Fidel Castro in the Cuban Revolution led to a large exodus of Cubans between 1959 and 1980. Dozens of Cubans yearly continue to risk the waters of the Straits of Florida seeking better economic and political conditions in the U.S. In 1999 the highly publicized case of six year old Elián González brought the covert migration to international attention. Measures by both governments have attempted to address the issue; the U.S. instituted a wet feet, dry feet policy allowing refuge to those travelers who manage to complete their journey, and the Cuban government have periodically allowed for mass migration by organizing leaving posts. The most famous of these agreed migrations was the Mariel boatlift of 1980.

It is now estimated by the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants that there are about 150,000 Colombians in "refugee-like situations" in the United States, not recognized as refugees or subject to any formal protection.

During the Vietnam War, many U.S. citizens who were conscientious objectors and wished to avoid the draft sought political asylum in Canada. President Jimmy Carter issued an amnesty Since 1975, the U.S. has resettled approximately 2.6 million refugees, with nearly 77% being either Indochinese or citizens of the former Soviet Union. Since the enactment of the Refugee Act of 1980, annual admissions figures have ranged from a high of 207,116 in 1980 to a low of 27,100 in 2002.

Currently ,ten national voluntary agencies resettle refugees nationwide on behalf of the U.S. government: Church World Service, Ethiopian Community Development Council, Episcopal Migration Ministries, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, International Rescue Committee, US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, World Relief Corporation and State of Iowa, Bureau of Refugee Services.

The U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) funds a number of organizations that provide technical assistance to voluntary agencies and local refugee resettlement organizations. RefugeeWorks, headquartered in Baltimore, MD., is ORR's training and technical assistance arm for employment and self-sufficiency activities, for example. The nonprofit organization assist refugee service providers in their efforts to help refugees achieve self-sufficiency. RefugeeWorks publishes white papers, newsletters and reports on refugee employment topics.

Refugees as security threats

Very rarely, refugees have been used and recruited as refugee warriors. and the humanitarian aid directed at refugee relief has very rarely been utilized to fund the acquisition of arms. Support from a refugee-receiving state has rarely been used to enable refugees to mobilize militarily, enabling conflict to spread across borders.

Common refugee medical problems

Apart from physical wounds or starvation, a large percentage of refugees develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or depression. These long-term mental problems can severely impede the functionality of the person in everyday situations; it makes matters even worse for displaced persons who are confronted with a new environment and challenging situations. They are also at high risk for suicide.

Among other symptoms, post-traumatic stress disorder involves anxiety, over-alertness, sleeplessness, chronic fatigue syndrome, motor difficulties, failing short term memory, amnesia, nightmares and sleep-paralysis. Flashbacks are characteristic to the disorder: The patient experiences the traumatic event, or pieces of it, again and again. Depression is also characteristic for PTSD-patients and may also occur without accompanying PTSD.

PTSD was diagnosed in 34.1% of Palestinian children, most of whom were refugees, males, and working. The participants were 1,000 children aged 12 to 16 years from governmental, private, and United Nations Relief Work Agency UNRWA schools in East Jerusalem and various governorates in the West Bank.

Another study showed that 28.3% of Bosnian refugee women had symptoms of PTSD three or four years after their arrival in Sweden. These women also had significantly higher risks of symptoms of depression, anxiety, and psychological distress than Swedish-born women. For depression the odds ratio was 9.50 among Bosnian women.

A study by the Department of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine at the Boston University School of Medicine demonstrated that twenty percent of Sudanese refugee minors living in the United States had a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder. They were also more likely to have worse scores on all the Child Health Questionnaire subscales.

Many more studies illustrate the problem. One meta-study was conducted by the psychiatry department of Oxford University at Warneford Hospital in the United Kingdom. Twenty surveys were analyzed, providing results for 6,743 adult refugees from seven countries. In the larger studies, 9% were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and 5% with major depression, with evidence of much psychiatric co-morbidity. Five surveys of 260 refugee children from three countries yielded a prevalence of 11% for post-traumatic stress disorder. According to this study, refugees resettled in Western countries could be about ten times more likely to have PTSD than age-matched general populations in those countries. Worldwide, tens of thousands of refugees and former refugees resettled in Western countries probably have post-traumatic stress disorder.

Medico legal Considerations

Refugee populations consist of people who are terrified, and are away from familiar surroundings. There can be instances of exploitation at the hands of enforcement officials, citizens of the host country, and even United Nations peacekeepers. Instances of human rights violations, child labor, mental and physical trauma/torture, violence-related trauma, and sexual exploitation, especially of children are not entirely unknown. In many refugee camps in three war-torn West African countries, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia, young girls were found to be exchanging sex for money, a handful of fruit, or even a bar of soap! Most of these girls were between 13 and 18 years of age. This happened as recently as in 2001. Parents tended to turn a blind eye because sexual exploitation had become a ‘‘mechanism of survival’’ in these camps.

World Refugee Day

World Refugee Day occurs on June 20. The day was created in 2000 by a special United Nations General Assembly Resolution. June 20 had previously been commemorated as African Refugee Day in a number of African countries.

In the United Kingdom World Refugee Day is celebrated as part of Refugee Week. Refugee Week is a nationwide festival designed to promote understanding and to celebrate the cultural contributions of refugees, and features many events such as music, dance and theatre.

See also

• United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

References

See also

• Asylum and Immigration Tribunal (The United Kingdom Court for Asylum claims)
• Boat people
• Cambodian American
• Climate refugee
• Comprehensive Plan of Action
• Dawn Raid
• diaspora, a mass movement of population, usually forced by war or natural disaster
• Displaced person
• Emergency evacuation
• Ethnic cleansing
• Forced migration
• Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer
• Greek refugees
• Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)
• Human migration
• Internally displaced person
• List of famous refugees
• Mandatory detention
• Merhan Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian refugee who has been living in the departure lounge of Terminal One in Charles de Gaulle Airport since 1988.
• Migrant literature
• Nansen passport
• Naturalization (includes denaturalization laws)
• Population transfer
• Refugee migration into New Zealand
• Refugees International
• Right of asylum (and political asylum)
• Stateless persons
• Vietnamese American
• World War II evacuation and expulsion

Bibliography

• Michael Robert Marrus, The Unwanted: European refugees in the 20th century, Oxford University Press 1985
• Mark Bixler, "The Lost Boys of Sudan: An American Story of the Refugee Experience," University of Georgia Press 2005
• Peter Fell and Debra Hayes, "What are they doing here? A critical guide to asylum and immigration." Venture Press 2007.
• Matthew J. Gibney, "The Ethics and Politics of Asylum: Liberal Democracy and the Response to Refugees," Cambridge University Press 2004
• Tony Waters, Bureaucatizing the Good Samaritan, Westview Press, 2001.
• Aristide R. Zolberg et al.,"Escape from Violence," Oxford University Press, 1989.
• Refugee number statistics taken from 'Refugee', Encyclopaedia Britannica CD Edition 2004.

External links

• World Refugee Survey
• Pictures of Refugees in Europe - Features by Jean-Michel Clajot, Belgian photographer
• Azerbaijani refugees
• European Council on Refugees and Exiles The European umbrella organization for European non-governmental organizations concerned with refugees and asylum seekers. Website provides weekly updates on European asylum policies, country reports, refugee stories and a comprehensive list of related links among other materials on the issue.
• CBC Digital Archives—Boat People: A Refugee Crisis
• UNHCR Thesaurus of official terminology related to refugees
• Refugee numbers by country
• PARDS.ORG Political Asylum Research and Documentation Service (Princeton, New Jersey)
• Refugee Stories—Listen to People's Experiences The site of the Refugee Communities History Project is full of oral history in mp3 format. The project won the 2006 Charity Award for arts, culture and heritage in the UK.
• Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford
• UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees home page
• UNHCR RefWorld access to UNHCR Country of Origin and Legal Information databases
• Measuring Protection by Numbers, Report from official UNHCR home page
• Refugee Health ~ Immigrant Health Populations and Issues & Infectious Diseases—from authors of Refugee and Immigrant Health: A Handbook for Health Professionals ISBN 0-521-82859-7

DP, Uitlander, absconder, alien, barbarian, bolter, deracine, displaced person, eloper, emigrant, emigre, escapee, evacuee, exile, expatriate, fleer, foreign devil, foreigner, fugitive, gringo, outlander, outlaw, outsider, runagate, runaway, skedaddler, stateless person, stranger, the Wandering Jew, tramontane, ultramontane, wanderer