MAJOR PROBLEMS OF AFRICA: THE REFUGEE PROBLEM IN AFRICA.

Refugees are persons who live outside their mother countries or homesteads and cannot or do not wish to return for fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or member ship to a different social group. Refugees include the asylum seekers, internally displaced persons (IDPs) and returnees who are still living in camps.

As early as 1965, these existed about I million refugees in Africa and this made the 1965 OAU conference in Accra to address itself seriously to this problem. In 1969, the OAU summit at Addis Ababa adopted a resolution by which all the OAU member states are duty bound to accord asylum to refugees from other parts of Africa. Today, there exists close to 8 million refugees in Africa.

CAUSES OF THE REFUGEE CRISIS IN AFRICA

1.     Colonialism: At the grass root of the refugee crisis was the oppressive/brutal colonial rule in countries like South Africa, Namibia, Angola, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Guinea Bissau. The arrest, detention and killing of nationalists made a number of elites and later peasant youths to flee for their lives. The elites included Sam Nujoma of Namibia, Edwardo Mondlane of Mozambique etc.

2.     The wars of liberation in Angola, Algeria, Guinea Bissau and so on led to the refugee crisis in neighbouring countries e,g More than 300,000 Angolans fled to neighbouring Zaire. They were fleeing from the murderous Portuguese weapons.

3.     Military coup de tats usually lead to a massive exodus of refugees. This is because the military over throw of legitimate governments is usually accompanied by political killings/assassinations e.g. following the 1974 coup de tat in Ethiopia, the supporters of the deposed Emperor Haille Sellasie fled the country. The 1963 assassination of president Sylvanus Olympic made a number of his supporters to flee from Togo. The 1993 murder of Melchior Ndadaye of Burundi led to the same phenomenon. Etc.

4.     Dictatorial rule in Africa contributes to the refugee problem in Africa. Dictatorship is characterized by detention without trial, torture of one's political opponents, censorship of the press, banning of political parties etc. Both the civilian African Presidents such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Obote of Uganda and the military presidents such as Idi Amin of Uganda, San Abacha of Nigeria. Kamuzu Banda of Malawi, Mengistu Mariam of Ethiopia and Late Siad Barre of Somalia practiced dictatorship, e.g San Abacha murdered the Pro-democrat Ken Saro Wiwa and 8 other Ogoni people in 1995. Such experiences led to an exodus of the opponents.

5.     Ethnic violence/cleansing also leads to the refugee problem in Africa. Ethnic cleansing is the massive massacre of members of one tribe by another e.g the Hum against the Tutsi in Rwanda in the 1950s and 1960s led to large scale movements of the Tutsi to Uganda, Tanzania Congo etc... Again the 1994 genocide in Rwanda led to the flight /fleeing of about 2.4 million Rwandese to T.Z, DRC and Burundi. In Mauritania, about 80,000 people fled to Senegal and Mali in 1989 due to ethnic violence. In 1994, ethnic violence led 12,000 Ghanaians into Togo etc.

6.     Civil wars in various parts of Africa have contributed greatly to the refugee crisis. The 1967-1970 Nigerian civil war, the 1981-2002 civil wars in Uganda, the 1955- 2002 civil wars in Sudan, the 1992 - 1993 civil war in Togo, then the civil wars in Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Angola etc. have all led to the refugee problem.

7.     Border conflicts between African countries have also led to the refugee problem. e.g the Ogaden boarder conflict between Ethiopia and Somalia led to war and displacement of persons, then the Eritrea-Ethiopia interstate conflict, the Uganda- Tanzania conflict over Kagera, the Algeria ~ Morocco conflict over Polisario etc... have also produced refugees.

8.     Unpopular political programmes also lead to the refugee crisis. For instance, there exist a number of Sudanese refugees at Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya who escaped from the compulsory military service in Sudan. These kind of refugees are term as draft evaders.

9.     Natural hazards also contribute to the refugee crisis in Africa, e.g. Long periods of droughts followed by excessive and destructive rains have contributed to the exodus of persons from Sudan and Somalia (1997-1998). The 1998 El-Nine weather problem led to displacements in of various parts of Africa. The February-April 2000 heavy rains and cyclone winds in Mozambique caused floods, food shortage, diseases and deaths. This led to the fleeing of people.

10.            Religious persecution also leads to the refuge problem e.g During the Holly months of Ramathan, the Algerian Muslim fundamentalists usually assault members of other faiths leading to massive outflows. The late Mobutu Seseseko at one time greatly persecuted Christians and a number of them fled from Zaire.

11.            Unpopular social customs such as female genital mutilation leads to the refugee problem e.g. women' and their daughters run away from Sudan, Kenya and Eastern Uganda for fear of female circumcision,

12.            Economic consideration also lead to the refugee crisis in Africa e.g. a number of Africans fled to Botswana, Namibia and South Africa for greener pastures. Also, a 349 big number of African economic refugees exist in Europe and USA. These run away from the deteriorating economies in their mother countries.

EFFECTS OF THE REFUGEE CRISIS IN AFRICA.

1.     Creation of refugee camps. There exists a number of refugee camps all over the African continent e.g Kigoma refugee camp in Tanzania, Kivu camp in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kakuma camp in Kenya , Cibitoke in Burundi etc.

2.     Displacement of people and separation of families. There exist a number of unaccompanied (parentless) child refugees.  Their parents and relatives have disappeared without trace! This has brought a negative psychological impact on such children.

3.     Sexual assault. The female refugees have been subjected to horrifying acts of rape. They are raped during wars, along the escape journeys, in camps by fellow senior refugees and even by officials in charge of them! Particularly vulnerable have been the Somali and Rwandese women- they have been traumatized!

4.     Poverty.  The refugee concentration camps or protected villages are usually overcrowded, dirty and poverty stricken. This makes refugees to experience some of the poorest standards of living on the African continent.

5.     Refugees suffer from social discrimination in areas of asylum. For instance the Rwandese refugees were exposed to extreme social discriminations and insult in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and DRC. This made them to use the force of arms to return home between 1990 - 1994.

6.     Rampant deaths.   Due to the movement of long journeys, overcrowding, malnutrition, attacks by diseases and epidemics, the African refugees usually experience high death rates. For Example, the 1997 - 1999 Cholera epidemic in DRC led to great losses of lives of the Rwandese refugees.

7.     Formation of Non-governmental organizations. A number of NGOs have been formed to cater for the needs of refugees, returnees, asylum seekers and internally displaced persons. These provide employment opportunities to several Africans and white expatriates.

8.     It has encouraged social research. The refugee problem has provided unlimited opportunities to academicians and researchers who delve deep into the causes, life styles problems and effects of refugees. With the help of the UNHCR, regional databases have been set up in different countries. These have enriched information about refugees.

9.     Land pressure. In some cases such as those of the Rwandese and Sudanese refugees in Uganda, the large numbers of refugees infringe on the host country's resources, especially land. This usually leads to hostility between refugees and the citizens of the host country e.g in Sierra Leone, there was violence against Liberians.

10.            Environmental degradation. The need for firewood and sticks for building has led to unreserved exploitation of wood in the nearby bushes and forests. This has resulted into deforestation, soil erosion, loss of wild life, depletion and contamination of water resources e.g. In Kenya, Sudan and Cameroon.

11.            Interstate conflicts. In many cases, the refugees use their country of asylum as a base to criticize or even fight against their country of origin e.g Ugandan refugees in Tanzania kept on destabilizing Amin's government in the 1970s; there were cross-boarder attacks from Uganda to Rwanda between 1990 - 1994; refugee problems almost brought Uganda and Kenya to a blink war in the early 1990s, etc.

12.            Subversive activities. At times refugees interfere into the internal affairs of the host countries e.g the Rwandese refugees in Uganda joined the National resistance Army (NRA) and played a leading role in overthrowing Obote IPs government in 1985. They also joined the forces that overthrew Mobutu of DRC in 1997.

13.            They create a dependence problem in the already poor African countries. They are a major economic burden to the host country and the donor communities' .e.g. About 1.2 million people in Southern Sudan depend on donor food, medicine, clothes etc...

14.            It has contributed to the rule of justice in Africa.  This is because the international community has started trying the perpetrators of human rights abuse in Africa e.g International tribunals were set up to try the perpetrators, of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

15.            The UNHCR has set up social amenities such as schools, health centres, recreation centres and the like in refugee camps e.g by December 2000, 40 bridges had been constructed in Congo, 18 health centres repaired, surgical laboratories set up, 55 schools rehabilitated etc... Women and children refugees have been given handcraft skills and when repatriated/returned to their countries of origin, they are often given starting capital.

Qn: Examine the causes and effects of the refugee crisis in Africa

Approach: Define the term a refugee. Identify countries which faced the problem. Give and explain its causes and effects