News
World Refugee Day
Friday, 20 June 2008 00:00
Time to redouble efforts to protect the internally displaced
On the occasion of World Refugee Day, the campaigning group IDP Action urges attention to be focused on internally displaced persons (IDPs), those forced to flee their homes, but caught within their own state's borders. Across Africa, millions of IDPs are, in the absence of coordinated assistance, left at the extreme of vulnerability.
Tenth anniversary of the Guiding principles on internal displacement
Monday, 11 February 2008 00:00
Time for African Union leaders to adopt an AU Convention to protect IDPs
Civil society organisations working in and on Africa urge African Heads of State to mark the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the submission of the United Nations (UN) Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement to the UN Commission on Human Rights by reaffirming their commitment to respect and uphold these Principles.
Read more: Tenth anniversary of the Guiding principles on internal displacement
Why do we need an AU Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons?
Friday, 25 January 2008 00:00
People forced to flee their homes are at risk of multiple threats to their security and welfare. Many face imminent threats to life, while others in situations of long-term displacement suffer a systematic denial of rights – civil and political, economic, social and, cultural. Within Africa there are as many IDPs – around 12 million – as there are in the rest of the world and nearly five times as many IDPs as refugees. Unlike refugees, who fall under the protection of international instruments such as the OAU Convention Governing the Special Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa and the UN Refugee Convention, and who have a specialist United Nations (UN) agency to assist them, there are no comparable standards or mechanisms to safeguard the rights of IDPs. Their own state is often unable or unwilling to assist and protect them and the international community is often unable or unwilling to intervene.
IDPs in Africa
Thursday, 21 June 2007 00:00
A case for concerted action
We’re proud of what we do... But people’s villages have been burned, their crops have been destroyed, their wells spiked, their family members raped, tortured and killed – and they come to us, and we give them 2,000 kilocalories a day [Kenny Gluck, Head of Operations of the Dutch branch of Médecins sans Frontières quoted in Protecting Two Million Internally Displaced: The Successes and Shortcomings of the African Union in Darfur, William O'Neill and Violette Cassis for the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, November 2005]
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