The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to a third country. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, with over 18,879 staff working in 138 countries.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is a global humanitarian aid, relief, and development nongovernmental organization. Founded in 1933 as the International Relief Association, at the request of Albert Einstein, and changing its name in 1942 after amalgamating with the similar Emergency Rescue Committee, the IRC provides emergency aid and long-term assistance to refugees and those displaced by war, persecution, or natural disaster. The IRC is currently working in about 40 countries and 26 U.S. cities where it resettles refugees and helps them become self-sufficient. It focuses mainly on health, education, economic wellbeing, power, and safety.
An internally displaced person (IDP) is someone who is forced to leave their home but who remains within their country's borders. They are often referred to as refugees, although they do not fall within the legal definitions of a refugee.
A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for internally displaced people. Usually, refugees seek asylum after they have escaped war in their home countries, but some camps also house environmental and economic migrants. Camps with over a hundred thousand people are common, but as of 2012, the average-sized camp housed around 11,400. They are usually built and run by a government, the United Nations, international organizations, or non-governmental organization. Unofficial refugee camps, such as Idomeni in Greece or the Calais jungle in France, are where refugees are largely left without the support of governments or international organizations.
Forced displacement is an involuntary or coerced movement of a person or people away from their home or home region. The UNHCR defines 'forced displacement' as follows: displaced "as a result of persecution, conflict, generalized violence or human rights violations".
The Ituri conflict is an ongoing conflict between the agriculturalist Lendu and pastoralist Hema ethnic groups in the Ituri region of the north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). While the two groups had fought since as early as 1972, the name 'Ituri conflict' refers to the period of intense violence between 1999 and 2003. Armed conflict continues to the present day.
The Great Lakes refugee crisis is the common name for the situation beginning with the exodus in April 1994 of over two million Rwandans to neighboring countries of the Great Lakes region of Africa in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. Many of the refugees were Hutu fleeing the predominantly Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which had gained control of the country at the end of the genocide. However, the humanitarian relief effort was vastly compromised by the presence among the refugees of many of the Interahamwe and government officials who carried out the genocide, who used the refugee camps as bases to launch attacks against the new government led by Paul Kagame. The camps in Zaire became particularly politicized and militarized. The knowledge that humanitarian aid was being diverted to further the aims of the genocidaires led many humanitarian organizations to withdraw their assistance. The conflict escalated until the start of the First Congo War in 1996, when RPF-supported rebels invaded Zaire and sought to repatriate the refugees.
Danish Refugee Council (DRC) is a private Danish humanitarian nonprofit organization, founded in 1956. It serves as an umbrella organization for 33 member organizations.
Refugees of Iraq are Iraqi nationals who have fled Iraq due to war or persecution. Throughout 1980 until 2017, there were a large number of refugees fleeing Iraq and settling throughout the world, peaking with the Iraq War and continued until the end of the most recent War in Iraq (2013–2017). Precipitated by a series of conflicts including the Kurdish rebellions during the Iran–Iraq War, Iraq's Invasion of Kuwait (1990) and the Gulf War (1991), the subsequent sanctions against Iraq (1991–2003), culminating in the Iraq War and the subsequent War in Iraq (2013–2017), millions were forced by insecurity to flee their homes in Iraq. Like the majority of refugees worldwide, Iraqi refugees established themselves in urban areas in other countries rather than in refugee camps. In April 2007, there was an estimate of over four million Iraqi refugees around the world, including 1.9 million in Iraq, 2 million in neighboring Middle East countries, and around 200,000 in countries outside the Middle East. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has led the humanitarian efforts for Iraqi refugees. The Iraqi displacement of several million was the largest in the Middle East at the time, and was even larger than the number of Palestinians who were displaced in 1948 during the creation of the state of Israel.
Masisi Territory is a territory which is located within the North Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Its political headquarters are located in the town of Masisi.
The Kivu conflict is an umbrella term for a series of protracted armed conflicts in the North Kivu and South Kivu provinces in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo which have occurred since the end of the Second Congo War. Including neighboring Ituri province, there are more than 120 different armed groups active in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Currently, some of the most active rebel groups include the Allied Democratic Forces, the Cooperative for the Development of the Congo, the March 23 Movement, and many local Mai Mai militias. In addition to rebel groups and the governmental FARDC troops, a number of national and international organizations have intervened militarily in the conflict, including the United Nations force known as MONUSCO, and an East African Community regional force.
The 2008 Nord-Kivu campaign was an armed conflict in the eastern Nord-Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The upsurge of violence in the Kivu conflict saw heavy battles between the Democratic Republic of Congo's army, supported by the United Nations, and Tutsi militia under General Laurent Nkunda.
Azerbaijan has a large number of internally displaced people and refugees, mostly as a result of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The First Nagorno-Karabakh war displaced 750,000 Azerbaijanis, with 600,000 of them being from Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts and the 150,000 of them being from Armenia.
The number of people who are currently displaced inside Iraq is estimated to be 3 million, almost one out of every ten Iraqis. This figure is cumulative and represents both those displaced before and after the 2003 US-led invasion. Displacement in Iraq is "chronic and complex:" since the 1960s Iraq has produced the largest population of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and refugees of any state in the Middle East.
The Kampala Convention is a treaty of the African Union (AU) that addresses internal displacement caused by armed conflict, natural disasters and large-scale development projects in Africa.
Libyan refugees are people who fled or were expelled from their homes since the beginning of the Libyan Crisis in 2011, including during the First Libyan Civil War, that deposed Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, and the Second Libyan Civil War (2014–2020). Many people have been displaced from Libya to neighbouring Tunisia, Egypt and Chad, as well as to European countries across the Mediterranean. The majority of refugees from Libya are Arabs, though many others are sub-Saharan African migrants who were living in Libya. These groups were also among the first refugee waves to exit the country. The total number of Libyan refugees was estimated at around one million in June 2011, with most returning to Libya after the First Civil War ended. In January 2013, there were 5,252 refugees originating from Libya alongside 59,425 internally displaced persons registered by the UNHCR.
Rutshuru Territory is a territory in the North Kivu province of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with headquarters is the town of Rutshuru.
A refugee crisis can refer to difficulties and dangerous situations in the reception of large groups of forcibly displaced persons. These could be either internally displaced, refugees, asylum seekers or any other huge groups of migrants.
Djugu territory is a district of Ituri, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Its capital is also named Djugu.
Kitchanga, also known as Kitshanga, is a town and a camp for Congolese Internally Displaced People (IDPs) in the Rutshuru Territory of North Kivu Province in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Kitchanga is located 119 kilometers north of Goma and 10 kilometers north of Burungu. It also lies near Kizimba and Budey villages.
