There are millions of people in the world who have no effective nationality. They cannot vote, get jobs in the formal sector, own property or obtain a passport. These "stateless" people face discrimination, socioeconomic hardship, and sometimes violence for which there is little recourse. They are often denied access to health care services and even basic education.
While military operations against the FDLR rebel group rage on in eastern DR Congo, the voices of people who have been displaced by these actions have been drowned out. Those at higher levels argue that the operations are a success and that they are the best option available. However, when Refugees International visited North and South Kivu in July and August, not one displaced person we spoke to saw the operations as a success.
In the wake of the violent escalation in fighting in the fall between the CNDP rebel group and the Congolese national army, several camps housing displaced people in North Kivu were destroyed. When the CNDP captured Rutshuru it went to the surrounding camps and told the displaced people they were now “liberated” and must go home.
Civilians continue to bare the brunt of the prevailing insecurity caused in northern Central African Republic. More than a million civilians are still living in fear of violence caused by the absence of state authorities and the presence of rebels and bandits, but some of those displaced have started to return to their villages. The ongoing political dialogue has given some hope to those people in the north who are aware of it.
Sayed and Jamil (not their actual names) both came to Malaysia alone as young boys. They are part of a growing trend in Rohingya families to send unaccompanied minors out of Burma in search of safety and better opportunities for their future. Neither boy said they felt safe in Malaysia. In Penang, where they are both currently living, the Rohingya community is constantly under threat of arrest by immigration authorities.
Jamil (right) is thirteen. He arrived in Malaysia just three months ago. His parents sent him to Malaysia to escape being taken by the Burmese army for forced labor. He travelled from his home in Northern Rakhine State to Bangladesh, where he waited twenty days to catch a boat to Thailand. He spent two weeks at sea on the boat. When he arrived in Thailand he was arrested and taken to the Burmese border where he was picked up by agents who agreed to take him to the Thai-Malaysia border.
“It is impossible to go back to Iraq because I would be killed, but I can barely survive here in Syria.”
Refugees International visited Yemen in February 2008 to assess the
humanitarian situation of Somali refugees. In Aden, a former British
colonial port located on the mouth of the Red Sea, we went to visit the
Basatin neighborhood. Basatin means garden in Arabic, but is anything
but. It’s a destitute area on the outskirts of Aden where thousands of
Somalis have regrouped in small mud and brick houses with tin roofs.
The town of Sanchez, Colombia, lies right on the banks of the River Patia. The river, a major narco-trafficking highway, cuts through the Andes and leads out to the Pacific Ocean. It has historically been an epicenter of political violence. Controlled by the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) until recently, the River Patia area has seen intense fighting between illegal armed groups since 2003, with a major massacre in 2006. To date, over 1,000 people are estimated to have been murdered along the river.
Some 25 kilometers inside Ethiopia’s border with Eritrea, the Shimelba Refugee Camp is home to more than 17,900 individuals who have fled from Eritrea for reasons that include religious persecution, fear of forced military conscription of males from age 18 to 40 that generally includes hard labor, and attempting to rejoin family left behind during the border conflict. The majority of camp residents are young males, many university educated and frustrated about the irreparable loss of the prime years of potential professional careers.
A centuries-long history of unity and separation continues to vex Ethiopia and Eritrea. Between May 1998 and June 2000, the two countries engaged in a border war in which tens of thousands of combatants were killed and some 650,000 civilians displaced.
During the 1998-2000 border conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, more than 70,000 people died, 650,000 were displaced, and at least 70,000 individuals were deported, Ethiopians from Eritrea and Eritreans from Ethiopia. But these were not the only victims of the conflict. In addition to the bereaved and those who had to reestablish homes after being displaced, many continue to endure prolonged family separation.
Although more than forty ethnic groups reside in Kenya, not all of them have been able to call that country home. The Nubian community, whose ancestors came to Kenya from Sudan in the late nineteenth century as conscripts of the British colonial army, is one group that has historically been denied citizenship.
One of the highlights of Refugees International’s recent visit to Burma was a visit with a Buddhist monk in Karen State in southeastern Burma. The RI team reached him through a Christian aid worker who was collaborating with him on health and education programs. We jumped at the opportunity to get a view from the local level as to what kind of social action work was being initiated through the Buddhist clergy.
On April 10, Refugees International hosted the Venerable U Kovida in Washington, DC as he testified before the House of Representatives' Human Rights Caucus. Ven. Kovida is a Burmese monk who helped lead the September protests in his home country. He was recently resettled to the United States as a refugee after a harrowing escape from Burma to Thailand. The following is the text of his testimony:
Respected Congressmen, staff members, Ladies and Gentlemen.
In February of 2008, Refugees International conducted a mission inside Burma, also known as Myanmar, to evaluate the humanitarian situation inside the country. During this mission, Refugees International encountered many civil society organizations, which are often the foundations of successful internationally sponsored humanitarian work. Additionally, Refugees International met civil society activists that are working to create indigenous alternatives to the current political debate inside the country.
Not far from Arbil city center is a scattered speckling of UN-blue gates, tarps, and barrels. Kawa Settlement, which presently houses the residents of the now-closed camp of Al-Tash, is home to about 230 Iranian Kurdish refugee families (totaling 1,350 individuals) who fled their homes in Iran between 1979 and 1988. Women in the settlement are generally housewives, while men work in construction and the local markets.
The twenty-five year old human rights worker spoke to RI not about his work, for which he’s been interviewed numerous times, but about the reasons he is no longer working or living in Uzbekistan.
Not yet middle aged, but appearing much older, Rebiya, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, told Refugees International about her flight from western China and about her life as a refugee in Kyrgyzstan.
Squeezed shoulder to shoulder on a bench in a chilly concrete office, three local Turkish women explain their situation to Refugees International. They live and work in a rural community near Kyrgyzstan’s border with Uzbekistan where cotton fields stretch in all directions and where RI has been told one out of ten people are stateless.
Kohatu didn’t give his age, but he looked to be in his late 40’s. He had recently arrived with his seven children at the Tham Hin refugee camp in Thailand, about three hours outside of Bangkok, after fleeing persecution in Burma. In Tham Hin, over 8,400 people are crammed onto land little more than one quarter of a mile wide and one mile long.
On October 18th, Ashin Kovida, 24, secretly crossed the Thai border, escaping Burma by dyeing his hair blond, wearing a crucifix and holding a false identification card. He spent two weeks hiding in a safe house, not taking a shower or anything, just waiting. He says that the people of Burma will never “forgive and forget” the Burmese military regime’s insult to the Buddhist religion.
Stateless persons have an equal right to protection before the law, the right not to be arbitrarily arrested, subjected to inhumane treatment or torture, denied due process, subjected to forced labor or returned to a place where they would be persecuted. Throughout most of the world, however, stateless adults and children are detained for years, often indefinitely, in harsh conditions, and without access to judicial recourse. According to former UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Non-citizens, David Weissbrodt:
“This is my story. My grandfather came to Kuwait a long time ago. He raised sheep and would go wherever there was good grazing and water. My father was born here. In the early 1950s he went to work for the Kuwait Oil Company and completed a training program about five or six years later. Because he was working so hard and maybe because he was illiterate, he never met the committee that was working to register citizens. He was included in the 1965 census, though, which identifies him as Kuwaiti. My older brothers, who were born before 1965, were also included in the census.”
As violence in Iraq continues unabated, the number of people seeking safety outside the country is mounting. There are currently an estimated 2.4 million Iraqi refugees dispersed throughout the Middle East, with Syria and Jordan, countries already hosting sizeable Palestinian populations, opening their doors to the vast majority. Lebanon, Egypt, Iran, and Turkey have also taken in significant numbers. Kuwait is now seeing the number of asylum seekers rise, as well.
“There are people who don't eat,” Faisal* explains. Not all bidun in Kuwait face the same degree of hardship, but almost all confront the same indignities. Faisal’s family shares a house with two others, who are his close relatives. There are as many as six people sharing one room. “I earn about KD 190 (US$ 692) a month and pay KD 150 (US$ 547) in rent.” He has not had a raise in 16 years. Families share household expenses, but no member of any of the families holds a job at present.
“Our savings are gone, my wife desperately needs medical attention, but no one is helping us.”
In honor of World Refugee Day, Refugees International is sharing the story of this Iraqi refugee to highlight the plight of the more than 4 million people who have been displaced since 2003 by the conflict in Iraq. Refugees International is currently on a mission to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon to assess the needs of Iraqi refugees and identify effective solutions to this crisis. We continue to call on the U.S.
The worst offensive in ten years by the Burmese military has displaced several thousand people in eastern Burma’s Karen State. The majority of refugees who flee the conflict in eastern Burma cross the border into Thailand. However, many also pay agents to smuggle them to Malaysia, where they are told that there are better work opportunities than in Thailand. Refugees International recently visited Malaysia and found that the government continues to target Burmese refugees and asylum seekers as illegal migrants.
Displaced Colombian families share frustration over their lack of access to decent housing, health care and education.
In Colombia, tens of thousands of families continue to flee their homes in search of safety. The numbers remain staggering: over 200,000 people a year flee their homes, making Colombia the host of the second highest population of internally displaced in the world, second only to Sudan.
Ugandan women insist that their voices are heard as peace is negotiated.In November 2006, Refugees International was traveling through the outskirts of Gulu in northern Uganda. Our vehicle came to a standstill as the road was blocked by a large rally and our driver told us, “It is the women with the peace march!” As we got closer, we could hear the music blaring and the beating of the drums. Everyone was turned out on both sides of the road and we maneuvered to get a good view.
A Haitian describes the abuse he faces in the Dominican Republic while he waits for his asylum claim to be processed.
It is estimated that between three and five hundred asylum
claims of people who fled Haiti
in search of international protection are presently pending in
neighboring Dominican
Republic. In
the meantime, the lives of the applicants
an
50,000 Central Africans have fled to southern Chad. Here are a few of their stories.Insecurity and abuse in the northwest of the Central African Republic prompted approximately 50,000 Central Africans to flee into southern Chad. Most of the refugees stated that they had been targeted by at least two of the three armed forces --- rebels, government forces, and bandits --- that take advantage of the lawlessness and extort money from the civilian population. When people cannot pay the requisite sum, they may lose their life or the life of a loved one.
