World Refugee Day

Decisive Action Needed by the African Union to Address Africa's Internal Displacement Crisis

On the occasion of World Refugee Day, 20 June, IDP Action urges the international community, especially the African Union (AU), to redouble its efforts to protect and assist Africa's 12 million internally displaced persons (IDPs). Refugees within their own borders, IDPs benefit from few of the protections afforded to those who manage to cross an international border, suffer the same insecurity and deprivation, if not worse, and are around five times more numerous.

“The number and plight of IDPs in Africa is a scandal. The African Union has talked the talk — drafting an IDPs Convention which lays out the protections IDPs should be accorded — but does not walk the walk. It has delayed the adoption of the Convention and has not intervened effectively in any of the IDP crises affecting Africa today. The speedy adoption – and determined implementation – of the Convention would signal a sea-change in how Africa looks after its IDPs” asserted Jeremy Smith, Director of IDP Action.

The urgency of the situation is demonstrated in the case of Darfur, Sudan, where 317,000 people were newly displaced in 2009, many of them for a second or third time since conflict in the region escalated in 2003. As of the start of 2009, nearly half of Darfur's population of 6 million remain internally displaced, finding little sanctuary in camps subject to regular attacks by government and rebel forces, attacks which often result in women being raped and children forcibly recruited. The expulsion of international humanitarian agencies and the shutting down of domestic humanitarian organizations has only compounded the plight of Darfur's IDPs.

On the issue of humanitarian assistance to IDPs, the draft AU Convention indicates that “States Parties shall uphold and respect the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence of humanitarian actors”.

The 2.7 million IDPs of Darfur contribute to Sudan having the unenviable title of being the state with the largest IDP population in the world, a total of nearly 5 million. Beyond Darfur, hundreds of thousands have lived in makeshift camps on the outskirts of the capital Khartoum for years, sometimes decades, displaced by the decades-old north-south conflict. That this conflict has been nominally subject to a Comprehensive Peace Agreement since 2005 has not encouraged 2 million IDPs to yet seek to return home. Great are the risks and few the incentives to go home: opportunities to earn a living and access education and healthcare are few, while inter-communal tensions bubble over into skirmishes and attacks which saw 190,000 displaced anew – or again – in 2008.

The picture of under-resourced and inadequate IDP return is repeated in Kenya, where around 600,000 were displaced by violence following disputed elections in December 2007. The return of IDPs has often occurred in the absence of meaningful security and without the displaced fully consenting to going home. Many remain in transit camps with little support from the government to fulfil their basic needs.

Here again, reality on the ground is out of line with the standards laid out in the AU Convention, which indicates that “States Parties shall seek lasting solutions to the problem of displacement by promoting and creating satisfactory conditions for voluntary return, local integration or relocation on a sustainable basis and in circumstances of safety and dignity”.

The AU Convention offers up the hope of African states being held to binding standards by which they are to prevent displacement, respond to the immediate needs of those displaced and create the conditions for sustainable return and resettlement. The Convention also lays out a leadership role for the AU itself: to coordinate and monitor the actions of states and to fill in for them when they show themselves unwilling or able to protect and assist IDPs. This is a role which the AU has yet to show itself willing to take on.

The Convention specifies that “The African Union shall support the efforts of the States Parties to protect and assist internally displaced persons under this Convention. In particular, the Union shall: Strengthen the institutional framework and capacity of the African Union with respect to protection and assistance to internally displaced persons; Coordinate the mobilisation of resources for protection and assistance to internally displaced persons...”.

“The AU needs to show how seriously it takes the issue of internal displacement. There are too many IDPs in Africa and their situation is too precarious for the situation to be allowed to drift any longer. The AU needs to move quickly to adopt its IDPs Convention and then invest sufficient resources and political will to see it effectively implemented”, concluded Jeremy Smith.

Background

IDP Action is a campaigning organization based in London which advocates for African and donor governments, regional and international institutions to place the needs of IDPs at the centre of their policy decisions. IDP Action's commentary on the AU's draft Convention for the Prevention of Internal Displacement and the Protection of and Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons in Africa is available on its website.

Contact

London

Frank Smith
+44 (0) 2086908961
+44 (0) 7525 739 971

Amsterdam

Jeremy Smith
+31 (0) 20 6233218