Millions of Angolan refugees have returned home, some say prematurely.
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"Life has to continue, and the war is over and behind us," said Stephen Zizi, owner of a popular bar in Voinjama, Liberia, expressing the optimism and resolve of tens of thousands of spontaneous refugees flowing back into Liberia across the nearby Guinean border.
Like eight of Liberia's other 15 counties, Lofa has not been declared safe for the country's 600,000 refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) to return to, but town officials and the local office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) have reported large numbers of spontaneous returnees in the county's main towns.
In the last three years, millions of refugees all over the world have been going back to their homes in the Balkans, Angola, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone and Liberia, giving rise to a wave of optimism that the tide in global refugee numbers is turning. The expected return of millions of Sudanese refugees and IDPs after the January 2005 peace deals will add to this flow, reducing the number of uprooted people even further.
"The statistics are very encouraging," said Ruud Lubbers, head of UNHCR, "especially for the nearly five million people who, over the past few years, have been able to either go home or find a new place to rebuild their lives."
The UN refugee agency appears delighted with the declining numbers. Around the world, the number of refugees, asylum seekers, returnees, stateless people and internally displaced persons as a whole dropped by 18 percent to 17.1 million in 2003 - the lowest total in at least a decade.
More specifically, with the global refugee population at 9.7 million, the figures released by UNHCR (in September 2004) suggest a ten per cent decrease between 2002 and 2003, making 2003 the second consecutive year in which a sharp drop was recorded, and the trend seems set to continue in 2004.
UNHCR cites several reasons for this decline, including increased international efforts to find solutions for those who fled their homes and the ongoing work by the UN agency, working in partnership with numerous other agencies, to end refugee situations that have lasted for years.
The strong desire to go home, coupled with the perception of higher levels of security in their home countries, have lured many millions of Afghan and Angolan refugees back. Hundreds of thousands have returned with assistance from the UNHCR and its partners, while many more have made the journey home spontaneously, without assistance.
According to UNHCR, the level of voluntary returns in 2003 was unprecedented, with some 3.5 million refugees going home, mostly Afghans from Iran and Pakistan.
"The phenomenal return of Afghans to their homeland over the past few years underscores the benefits of sustained international attention and support for the work of UNHCR and its partners in regions of origin," said Lubbers. "The impact is felt as far away as Europe, where the numbers of Afghan asylum seekers have plunged. But the countries of return themselves also need continuing international support and investment throughout the entire process of repatriation, reintegration, rehabilitation and long-term reconstruction. Then we know refugees can go home and stay home, ensuring the sustainability of their return."
Cycles of instability: the revolving door of displacement
However, Ken Bacon, director of Washington-based Refugees International, told IRIN the current optimism should be tempered with caution: "We are entering a new era, but with considerable doubt and trouble - the world is only able to deal with the symptoms, and not the disease itself, that causes displacement."
Afghans have been returning in huge numbers to their homeland.
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How the international community approaches the issue of returnees is critical to avoiding a cycle of insecurity and displacement. World Bank studies have shown that it is far cheaper to help returnees rebuild their lives than to abandon them to a situation that may result in impoverishment, instability and a renewal of conflict. According to Bacon, it is "not only humanitarian but it's cost-efficient, when you think of the destruction and endless crises and costs that arise from conflict."
Dennis McNamara, director of the Inter-Agency Internal Displacement Division (IDD) of the UN, pointed out to IRIN that the failure to reintegrate returnees presented a serious problem to the international community. "You have the risk of a cycle of displacement after return. If basic services and structures are not in place … and if people cannot get land or find work, you are more likely to have secondary displacement and lawlessness, and these are classic symptoms of return to areas without structures. In these situations you have a risk of continued instability."
In recognition of the problems around refugee reintegration, UNHCR hosted an international meeting in Geneva in March 2004 specifically to discuss the needs of returnees. The findings of the conference illustrated the enormous challenges that face post-conflict countries like Angola, Sierra Leone and Liberia in offering support to returnees. The needs are colossal, with most refugees going back to devastated areas, in chronically poor countries lacking the most basic infrastructure and services. Many ex-combatants are newly demobilized, and there is often the real fear that they will once again take up arms.
The importance of the 4 'Rs'
After years of grappling with how best to provide for the needs of returning refugees - shelter, food, water, healthcare and education, among others - UNHCR developed the '4Rs': repatriation, reintegration, rehabilitation and reconstruction.
The agency works in partnership with hundreds of NGOs in implementing programmes designed to ensure that refugee return is sustainable and durable. Ruud Lubbers recently told IRIN: "It is clear that these things cannot all be done by HCR; we are always there for repatriation, and we do some projects in reintegration, but we try to partner with others ..."
UNHCR's budget projections illustrate the emphasis it places on reintegration and rehabilitation. In Afghanistan, HCR expects to spend almost US $7 million (10 percent of the 2005 allocation for the country) on income-generation projects, and $6.8 million on shelter and other infrastructure. In Angola and Sudan similar proportions of the budgets are set aside for programmes covering heath, education and other needs traditionally provided by national governments and international NGOs.
Fewer refugees but more IDPs
Despite the achievement of large-scale returns in Afghanistan, Angola, Bosnia, Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka in recent years, the problems of uprooted people continue, with similar numbers being internally displaced in Columbia, Burundi, Africa's Congo basin, Sudan and other regions.
Refugees are not the only uprooted people who need to return home and rebuild their lives. According to Jens-Hagen Eschenbacher, Communication Coordinator of the Global IDP Project, "While it is true that the number of refugees has been decreasing, the number of conflict-induced IDPs went up dramatically, with a peak in the first half of the 1990s.Currently, it is estimated that there are some 25 million IDPs - twice as many as refugees."
IDPs are among the world's most vulnerable and neglected people. According to UNHCR's most recent figures, in 2003 one-third of IDPs were in situations where their lives were in constant danger; over 10 million had hostile or indifferent governments who did not provide any protection; nearly 18 million received only occasional or no humanitarian assistance at all from their governments.
Displacement in Sudan
The example of Sudan illustrates how an emphasis on refugees, coupled with the failure to recognize the scale of IDP numbers and the problems of their return can distort perception of the challenges facing post-conflict societies.
Despite longing for home, refugees fear the ongoing insecurity in Sudan.
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Over four million people are estimated to have been uprooted by the war in southern Sudan. Of these, approximately 600,000 live in the seven countries surrounding Sudan - many of them for as long as 12 years - and are reluctant to return to an area ruined by conflict. However, the vast majority of those who fled their homes are IDPs scattered across the country, and their return will place a huge burden on the under-developed and war-damaged southern region.
When these refugees and IDPs will return is also unclear. "The scenario that seems likely is that many will wait and see how things go back home, and stay where they are. Services are a big issue, and people will probably watch and see how those are set up," David Mozersky, a political analyst from the Sudan International Crisis Group, commented to IRIN. "In refugee camps, people have access to medical attention and there are schools."
In the Darfur region of western Sudan the contrast between IDPs and refugees is also striking. Approximately 200,000 people fled across the border to eastern Chad, seeking protection and assistance as refugees, while a far greater number - 1.6 million - remain in Darfur amid continued conflict, facing food insecurity and physical danger as IDPs.
Observers and analysts examining the global problem of uprooted people question the current optimism surrounding refugee return, suggesting instead that the political map of the world has changed since the end of the Cold War, followed by the September 11 attacks on the US. Localised conflicts around the world have accelerated, producing IDPs fleeing unresolved internal crises.
While refugees are covered by an explicit legal framework providing them with international protection and assistance, IDPs, according to the Director of the IDD, "are the poorest of the poor, amongst the most vulnerable of already impoverished communities. They don't get any attention, are hidden away, and often neglected." However, if the IDPs are to return to their homes, like refugees, they will need structures and services to allow them to develop and prosper in security.
Referring to the Sudanese refugees, Emmanuel Nyabera, a UNHCR spokesman, told IRIN: "We have to create a situation where there is an urge to go back. The country of origin has to be better than the country of asylum."
Without massive long-term investment in development and civil society in Sudan and many other devastated countries where people have been uprooted, it is hard to see how refugee and IDP return will be sustainable, durable or imminent.
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