Today is International Refugee Day. By The Fault takes a look at the plight of refugees worldwide. This post combines a look at refugees in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Sudan (Darfur & Juba), the Western Sahara, and the Karen of Burma. Each will be broken out for separate viewing.
There are at least 11.4 million refugees world-wide.
Iraqi Refugees By Location and Number
About 2 million Iraqis live in increasingly difficult conditions in countries like Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon. Another 1.7 million are internally displaced persons (IDPs). The United States has not offered any meaningful assistance. How many Iraqi refugees did the U.S. resettle in 2006? 202. The US State Department offered to resettle 7,000 in 2007. It barely cracked 150. Brazil, a country that neither supported the invasion or has had anything to do with the war, took in over 4,000 in 2007.
Most of the Iraqis living abroad represent the middle class and professional classes of Iraq, those with a means to get out. Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel recently offered to starting accepting Iraqi refugees who are Christian for permanent resettlement in Germany. There were approximately two million Iraqi Christians before the war representing about 8% of Iraq’s population. By Iraqi standards, they are well-off and well-education. They also represented Iraq’s merchant class of shopkeepers.
Iraqi Christian Refugees
Iraqi Shi’ite Refugees
Here is what Nir Rosen wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Post last year:
The crisis in Iraq has the entire region on edge waiting to see if Iraq will come to them. While Sunni leaders in the region, whether in Egypt, Jordan, or Saudi Arabia, have had to pay lip service to anti-imperialism and Arab nationalism by calling for an end to the occupation, the truth is that off the record nothing frightens them more than an American withdrawal from Iraq.
Fear of successive waves of Iraqi refugees resonates throughout the Middle East, and no discussion of Arab governments’ reluctance to acknowledge their plight can begin without reference to the Palestinian experience. … The presence of the Palestinians also contributed to the destabilization of several countries, while in places like Lebanon they were preyed upon by more powerful militias, which slaughtered many of them. Today radical groups based in Palestinian refugee camps are exporting fighters to Iraq.Unable to return home, running out of savings, carrying with them sectarian grudges and many with military experience, Iraqi refugees may yet destabilize much of the region.
Afghani Refugees
The above table points to one of Afghanistan’s problems. It fares poorly on most socio-economic measures. That is in part due to the legacy of a conflict that has dragged on in one form or another since 1975. Even during the brief respite from war, Afghanistan then had to endure the Taliban regime, perhaps the most barbaric regime since Pol Pot’s reign in Cambodia.
Since 1978, 3.7 million Afghans have sought refuge in neighboring countries (2 million currently live in Pakistan and 1.5 million in Iran), while at least 900,000 were displaced from their homes within Afghanistan before September 11. An estimated 30,000 refugees live in India, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and other countries. Even before the current refugee movement, the neighboring governments were showing impatience with the large, intractable refugee populations in their countries. Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have closed their borders though many still trickle in through the numerous mountain passes.
The “Lucky” Ones in Pakistan
Inside Afghanistan, millions of Afghans rely on international food aid for survival. The economy, ruined by years of civil strife and Taliban rule, suffered a further blow when the worst drought in 30 years caused crop failures that led hundreds of thousands of Afghans to leave their homes in search of food beginning in June 2000.
A Photo Journal from Darfur
There are over 240,000 Sudanese refugees already in Tchad, and a nearly equal number of Tchadians who have been displaced by the chaos along the border. The influx pushes the number of people in eastern Chad dependent on an already overstretched aid operation toward half a million. In February of this year, at least another 10,000 to 15,000 more flooded in as Chinese-sponsored Sudanese militias did another round of ethnic cleansing. And while the crisis in Darfur is the most visible, it is not the only refugee crisis in the Sudan. Juba is the other and it gets scant attention because of the remoteness of the area. Here is a recent report from late May 2008 in the Sudan Tribune a London-based group that tracks events in the Sudan.
The Refugee Crisis in Juba in the southern Sudan
In January 2005, the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and Khartoum’s Islamic-dominated government signed the comprehensive peace agreement. Many of the four million people displaced by Africa’s longest-running conflict started returning home. And while the world watches as best it can the crisis in Darfur, the tenuous peace in Juba has fallen apart. China smells oil and these people have to go.
Sahrawis Refugees
This was my first job out of college working for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. That was 1987. At that time they had been there, which is the middle of the Sahara, for 12 years. They are still there.
The Camp in Tindouf
The camps in Tindouf, comprised of between 160,000 and 200,000 Sahrawis, is home to those who fled the Western Sahara when Spain withdrew in 1975. Morocco occupied the northern two-thirds and Mauritania the bottom third. After a few years of Polsario attacks, Mauritania withdrew and Morocco occupied the whole of the sparsely populated but mineral rich area. The Tindouf camps are among those with the longest duration in the world, not a very prestigious title. Some live in tents, others in abode buildings and parts now resemble a city. Perhaps as many as a third of Sahrawis call Tindouf home.
The Saharawis have their own democratically elected government, the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), with men and women ministers and parliamentarians. Its officials run the camps. The government looks after its people and seeks the support of other nations for the proposed referendum so that the Saharawi people can return to their own country. The SADR is recognised as the legitimate government of Western Sahara by at least 80 countries, most recently by the Republic of South Africa and Kenya. It is a member of the African Union. The United States does not recognized the SADR but has called for a plebiscite for the region.
The temperature reaches 135 F in summer and drops below freezing in winter. The area is often affected by sandstorms, called siroccos, which sweep through the refugee camps without warning. They can bury a camp in minutes. In the Spring, flash floods wipe out entire stretches of tents and destroy everything in their path.
The Aftermath of a Flood
Morocco’s Wall of Shame
To prevent the Sahrawis, many of whom are nomadic, from entering and leaving, Morocco has built a wall across the length of the Western Sahara. Forts are built into the ramparts.
A website in Spanish: Sahrawi Independiente
The Karen of Burma
One of the most forgotten people are the Karen, an ethinc minority that lives along the Burma-Thai border. Numbering at least 9 million people, the Karen are the world’s third largest ethnic group that do not have their own state.
A Subset of the Karen are called the Miao
International Refugee Organization
The World Refugee Survey 2008 was released on 19 June 2008. This year’s Survey offers 60 country updates and also highlights ten of the worst violators of refugees’ rights. Also in this year’s Survey are examples of people speaking out on behalf of refugees in countries from Thailand to Turkey, and detailed statistics on refugees around the world. Read it online at International Refugee Organization
Refugee Rights Report Card
The United States received a F. Europe a D and Canada a B. Countries that received an A grade are Benin, Brazil, Costa Rica, The Gambia, Liberia, Mali and Niger. The full report card.
The world’s people deserve better. Don’t buy Chinese goods, don’t buy Moroccan goods. Support relief efforts for the world’s refugees.