forced migration - north-africa

7/29/2019 Forced Migration - North-Africa

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Issue 39June 2012

FORFREEDISTRIBUTION ONLY

North Africa anddisplacement

2011-2012


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2 From the editors

3 Positive lessons from the Arab Spring

Antnio Guterres

3 Broadening our perspective

William Lacy Swing

4 Migration and revolution

Hein de Haas and Nando Sigona

6 Bordering on a crisis

Guido Ambroso

8 Legal protection frameworks

Tamara Wood

10 The bittersweet return home

Asmita Naik and Frank Laczko

12 The reintegration programme for Bangladeshi returnees

Anita J Wadud

12 Local hosting and transnational identity

Katherine E Hoffman

14 Resettlement is needed for refugees in Tunisia

Amaya Valcrcel

15 Dispossession and displacement in Libya

Rhodri C Williams

16 We are not all Egyptian

Martin Jones

17 Protecting and assisting migrants caught in crises

Mohammed Abdiker and Angela Sherwood

19 Looking beyond legal status to human need

Tarak Bach Baouab, Hernan del Valle, Katharine Derderian

and Aurelie Ponthieu

20 From commitment to practice: the EU response

Madeline Garlick and Joanne van Selm

23 Therstsafecountry

Raffaela Puggioni

24 Protection for migrants after the Libyan Revolution

Samuel Cheung

24 An asylum spring in the new Libya?

Jean-Franois Durieux, Violeta Moreno-Lax and Marina Sharpe

25 Newly recognised humanitarian actors

James Shaw-Hamilton

26 Migrants caught in crisis

Brian Kelly

28 Proud to be Tunisian

Elizabeth Eyster, Houda Chalchoul and Carole Lalve

Forced Migration Review

(FMR) provides a forum for the regular

exchange of practical experience, information

and ideas between researchers, refugees

and internally displaced people, and those

who work with them. It is published in

English, Arabic, Spanish and French by

the Refugee Studies Centre of the Oxford

Department of International Development,

University of Oxford.

Staff

Marion Couldrey & Maurice Herson (Editors)

Kelly Pitt (Funding & Promotion Assistant)Sharon Ellis (Assistant)

Forced Migration Review

Refugee Studies Centre

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Development, University of Oxford,

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FMR 39: In this issue...

www.fmreview.org/north-africa

As this issue goes to print, the so-called Arab Spring continues

to reverberate locally, regionally and geopolitically. It started inearly 2011 and spread across North Africa, with well-documented

consequences far further aeld in Africa and Europe. The conict

in Libya in particular confronted aid and protection actors with

complex situations where people were moving for diverse reasons

and facing distinct needs.

This issue of FMR reects on some of the experiences, challenges

and lessons of the Arab Spring in North Africa, the implications of

which resonate far wider than the region itself.

We would like to thank IOM, the Swiss Federal Department of

Foreign Affairs and UNHCRs Bureau for the Middle East and North

Africa for generously supporting this issue of FMR. We would also

like to thank Khalid Koser, Frank Laczko, Angela Sherwood and

Peter Van der Auweraert, our special advisors on this issue, for their

invaluable assistance.

The North Africa issue is being published in English, Arabic and

French, and is online in a variety of formats, including audio, at

www.fmreview.org/north-africa The expanded contents Listing is

online at www.fmreview.org/north-africa/FMR39listing.pdf

Alongside this issue we are also publishing an updated version of

our FMR supplement on Islam, human rights and displacement.

FMR 40 will include a feature theme on Being young and out of

place and will be published online in July 2012. For all forthcoming

issues, see www.fmreview.org/forthcoming

Keep up to date: Sign up for email alerts at www.fmreview.org/request/alerts or email us at [email protected] to request alerts

or join us on Twitter and Facebook.

With our best wishes

Marion Couldrey and Maurice Herson

Online giving to FMR: Please consider making a contribution to

help us continue to produce FMR visit www.giving.ox.ac.uk/fmr

Thank you!

From the editors

Front cover image: On the Tunisia-Libya border

2011 UNHCR / A Duclos


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North Africa and displacement 2011-2012 3

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Forced displacement in todays world is marked byseveral characteristics: multiple and unpredictabletriggers; overwhelming numbers eeing in a short periodof time; and entire communities destroyed, too oenfor generations, in a maer of days. Whether acrossinternational borders or within their countries of origin,those displaced are oen met with remarkable generosityby individuals and host communities, yet sometimes failto elicit the international assistance required to alleviatetheir misery or the political will to resolve their plight.

The exodus from Libya serves as a microcosm of thesefeatures. Sparked by an individual act of resistancein Tunisia, peaceful protests in Libya were met byoppression, and by late February border points with

Tunisia that had formerly received 1,000 persons a daywere geing that many in an hour. Entire communitiesed, leaving behind their homes and life savings,the more fortunate carrying what possessions theycould such as maresses and blankets. The scenesI witnessed during my visits to the border duringthe crisis were dismaying, with frightened anddisoriented crowds still in shock from the violencethey had escaped and the uncertainty they faced.

The response from ordinary Tunisians was remarkable inits altruism. I witnessed villagers sharing their homes andland while others drove for miles to provide sandwichesfor those stuck in the crowds at the border. That Tunisia

maintained an open border is also noteworthy as it wasstill emerging from its own Arab Spring turmoil. Theinternational community in this instance joined forces,sending aircra to return workers and, in the case ofrefugees, oering reselement places so that thosesecondarily displaced from Libya could start a new life.

Coordinated and timely assistance and protection arecritical, as we witness a proliferation of new conicts Mali, Syria and Sudan in addition to old ones,including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia andAfghanistan. We need, unfortunately, to be able to focuson more than one story at a time as the world is creatingdisplacement faster than it is producing solutions. Theseare essentially political problems and require a political

response, as humanitarian agencies like mine can neitherprevent nor end displacement on our own. The reactionto the exodus from Libya showed it can be done, whenthe international community has the will to do so.

I welcome this issue of Forced Migration Review forexamining what was accomplished and highlightingwhat challenges remain. Our common work to seekpolitical responses and solutions, in a systematic fashion,must be underpinned by learning such as this.

Antnio Guterres is UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

www.unhcr.orgFor more information, please contact

Adrian Edwards [email protected]

Upholding the human rights and dignity of migrantsand people displaced is one of the major challengesof the century. The causes of migration are complexand myriad, and result in no small measure from thephenomenon of globalisation in the economic, politicaland cultural spheres. Human rights violations, armedconict, natural disasters and, increasingly, climate

change and environmental degradation also contributeto this unprecedented surge in human mobility.

Complex crises triggered by man-made and/or naturalcauses generate disorderly and predominantly forcedmovements of people, either internally or across

borders; these not only make some populationssignicantly vulnerable but also have lastingimplications for societies, economies, development,environments, security and governance. There is agrowing recognition that existing legal categories ofcrisis-aected persons such as refugees or internallydisplaced persons may not fully capture the variedconditions of people in crisis situations, the manyavenues used by persons to escape such situations,and the changing nature of circumstances over time.

Approaches that focus solely on displaced persons,for example, may fail to reect other realities such

as the high vulnerability of persons unable to migrateduring crises and remaining trapped in dangerousconditions. Placing crisis-related mobility in a largermigration context can shed light on latent structuralfactors which determine peoples migration behaviour

before, during and aer a crisis, and promote eectiveways to protect, assist and guarantee the human

rights of aected persons. The events in North Africa,in particular the Libya crisis, demonstrate the needand added value of looking at crises from a mobilitystandpoint, what we at IOM term a migration crisis.

Complementary to humanitarian preparedness,response and recovery frameworks for complex crises,a migration management approach examines all phasesrelated to crisis response from the standpoint of humanmobility. One of the major challenges that remains isfor states to coordinate among themselves and withthe institutions that have the mandate and architectureto respond to these crises. IOM is taking a lead inreviewing operational systems and mechanisms toimprove preparedness and response to migration crises.

William Lacy Swing is Director General of the International

Organization for Migration. www.iom.intFor more information,

please contact Jean-Philippe [email protected]

Positive lessons from the Arab SpringAntnio Guterres

Broadening our perspectiveWilliam Lacy Swing


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4 North Africa and displacement 2011-2012

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From the outbreak of the popular uprisings in NorthAfrica and the Middle East, European media andpoliticians were preoccupied with the prospect oftidal waves of North Africans reaching Europe. Thesesensational predictions lacked any scientic basis so itshould come as no surprise that they have not come true.

Nonetheless, migration in its various forms has playeda key part in the uprisings that spread across theseregions. The columns of vehicles escaping from citiesand villages under siege in Libya, the migrant workersawaiting repatriation in the holding centres in Egypt

and Tunisia, the boats crammed with Tunisians andsub-Saharan Africans crossing the MediterraneanSea and landing on the island of Lampedusa, and thenumerous Egyptian migrs and university studentsreturning to Cairo to join the protests in Tahrir Squareare a few examples of the ways in which humanmobility has intersected the events in North Africa.

Recent migration events are not simply a side eect ofthe revolutions. The possible links between decliningopportunities for migration from North Africa tothe EU (due to the economic crisis and intensiedborder controls) and the exclusion and discontent ofdisenfranchised youth on the one hand, and the protestson the streets of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Algeria andMorocco on the other, deserve closer consideration.

As a starting point it seems useful to distinguish betweenthe uprisings themselves, and the subsequent transitionand consolidation of new political regimes. This allows aclearer overview of mobility paerns, the various waysmigration and forced displacement have intersectedwith the popular uprisings over time, and the models ofengagement adopted in this rapidly changing politicalsituation by international agencies that otherwisewould be lost in the generic label Arab Spring.

From the northern shoresIn 2011, the EU missed a historic opportunity todemonstrate its commitment to the foundations it is builton. It is as if wed said to them: It is wonderful thatyou make a revolution and want to embrace democracybut, by all means [possible], stay where you are becausewe have an economic crisis to deal with here. (CeciliaMalmstrm, EU Home Aairs Commissioner)

This quote from a public lecture at Harvard Universityin April 2012 reects a remarkably candid assessmentof the ambiguity of response by the EU and its MemberStates to the migration ows associated with the politicalinstability and economic insecurity in North Africaand the Middle East. The array of documents, policystatements and position papers issued over the lastyear by EU institutions highlights an anxiety about theexodus of North Africans towards the northern shoresof the Mediterranean Sea. While this exodus never

happened, the powerful image of an invasion withthe Italian island of Lampedusa acquiring an iconicstatus has certainly permeated public perceptionsand the policy responses of EU Member States.

The EUs response to this conict-related migrationin North Africa has also demonstrated the tensionbetween internal and external dimensions of migrationgovernance. The EUs Global Approach to Migrationand Mobility paper (GAMM)1 of November 2011 triedto reframe the EUs approach around four equallyimportant pillars: facilitating regular migration

and mobility; preventing and reducing irregularmigration and tracking; maximising developmentimpact; and promoting international protection andenhancing the external dimension of asylum policy.

While this is a step in the right direction by apparentlyshiing away from a unilateral bias on security issues,the GAMM still remains locked into the false andmisleading dichotomy of legal and illegal migration(even though with a soer tone). The centrality ofmigration enforcement and control is still paramountand the strengthened role of Frontex2, which saw itsoperational budget rocket from 6.3 million in 2005 tonearly 42 million in 2007 and topping 87 million by2010, symbolises this priority. The reality of the deathsat sea of an estimated 2,000 migrants in 2011 alone(according to the Council of Europe), at a time whenthe Mediterranean Sea had become one of the mostmilitarised and heavily patrolled areas of the globe, isa stark reminder of the gap between EU rhetoric andactual practice on development and human rights.

The social and political unrest and the popular pushtowards more democratic governance in North Africahave upset the cosy relationship and collaboration onmigration issues between European and North Africangovernments. In the years preceding the revolutions, the

EU and its North African counterparts thought that theproblem of the crossing of the external borders of Europeby undesirables was, if not solved, at least beginningto be overcome. In addition to increasingly restrictiveimmigration regimes, the EU externalised border controlsto North African countriesthrough initiatives such as thebilateral agreements between theformer Libyan regime and Italy,or Tunisia and France, or Moroccoand Spain. Rather than stoppingmigration, this has increased theirregular character of migrationand has led to a geographicaldiversication of overland andmaritime migration routes inand from Africa. This has mademigration more costly and riskyfor migrants, and increased their

The Arab Spring has not radically transformed migration patterns in the Mediterranean, and the label migrationcrisis does not do justice to the composite and stratied reality.

Migration and revolutionHein de Haas and Nando Sigona

Sallum border post in the no-mans

land between Libya and Egypt.

UNHCR/FNoy


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vulnerability to exploitation and suering. EU policymakers seem rarely to consider these side eects.

From the southern shoresThe hundreds of thousands of sub-Saharan and othermigrant workers stranded in Libya during the civil warwho sought refuge across the Egyptian and Tunisianborders suddenly exposed the scale of intra-Africanmigration to the global public. Overall, migrant workersfrom more than 120 countries were displaced duringthe conict.

Eurocentric accounts of the Arab Spring almostcompletely ignored the profound impact of the ArabSpring on countries of origin. This pertains not only to thepossible role of returnees in the recent political violencein countries like Mali but also to the fact that manyfamilies in extremely poor countries are now deprived ofvital remiance income since migrant workers returned

home from Libya. In many ways, returnee migrantsmoved from one situation of insecurity to another.

Many displaced people were migrant workers whohad lived in Libya for years. In the wake of the conictmost of them have tried to return home, discreditingthe idea that the Arab Spring would cause a massexodus to Europe. However, the most vulnerablegroup consisted of migrants and refugees who werenot able to return because it was too dangerous and/or because they lacked the money and contacts tofacilitate their ight. They have become trapped in asituation which the migration researcher Jrgen Carlinghas aptly described as involuntary immobility.

Others did not necessarily aspire to return, as they haded insecurity, persecution and deprivation in their owncountries, and had oen been living in North Africa andthe Middle East for many years or even decades. Theseinclude sub-Saharan and Tuareg migrants in Libya; Iraqis,Palestinians and Somalis in Syria; and Sudanese andSomalis in Egypt. Political instability, economic crisis,increasing costs of living and unemployment, and theincrease of insecurity (due to reduced policing) have madethese groups more vulnerable than they were already.

Mass ight has been largely conned to Libya and

there has been no major increase of emigration fromother North African countries. The increase in Tunisianemigration was facilitated by reduced policing duringthe revolution but stood in a long-standing traditionof irregular boat migration to Europe that has existed

since southern European countries introducedvisas for North Africans around 1991.

Emigration and revolutionIt is rather unlikely that the revolutions willdrastically change long-term migration paerns.The same processes that have created theconditions for the revolutions are also conduciveto emigration, and the two phenomena mayreinforce each other. In the region, a newgeneration has grown up, beer educated,with wider aspirations and more aware ofopportunities elsewhere and injustices at homethan any previous generation, but at the same time

feeling rejected and angry due to high unemployment,corruption, inequality and political repression.

The coming of age of a new, wired and aware generationof angry young men and women has increased boththe emigration and the revolutionary potential of Arabsocieties. Even under the most optimistic scenarios,the idea that emigration will stop is as unlikely as theidea of a mass exodus towards Europe. Certainly, apopulous and deprived country like Egypt seems tohave a signicant emigration potential for years to come.However, whether these migrants will go to Europeor elsewhere primarily depends on future economicgrowth in Europe and elsewhere. At the same time,it is likely that the Libyan oil economy will continueto rely on migrant labour, and Egyptian and sub-Saharan migrants have in fact started to return there.

For political elites in the region, migration has fullled

an important role as a safety valve, since the opportunityto migrateoverseas relieved unemployment, discontentand internal political pressures for reform. This lack ofmigration opportunities may perhaps have turned theaention and anger inwards, and tipped the balance infavour of revolutionary forces. Besides, political exilesand emigrants played an important role in supportingthe revolutions, certainly in Tunisia and Egypt.

What will be the impact of political reforms and possiblymore democratic modes of governance on migration andmigration policy? Some observers argue that the moreconservative, religiously inspired nature of current andfuture governments may possibly increase migrationaspirations among secular elites, minorities and women,whose rights might possibly be impinged upon.

On the other hand, possible increases in respect forhuman rights for their own citizens may also pushNorth African societies to become more reectiveand self-critical towards xenophobia and violations ofthe rights of migrants and refugees, and make theirgovernments less willing to collaborate with the security-focused immigration policies of European countries.

Hein de Haas [email protected] is Co-Director of the

International Migration Institute, University of Oxford.

www.imi.ox.ac.uk Nando Sigona [email protected] a Senior Research Ofcer at the Refugee Studies Centre,

University of Oxford. www.rsc.ox.ac.uk

1. hp://ec.europa.eu/home-aairs/news/intro/docs/1_EN_ACT_part1_v9.pdf

2. The European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the ExternalBorders of the Member States of the European Union.

This article partly reects discussions at a workshop entitled

The Arab Spring and Beyond: Human Mobility, Forced Migration

and Institutional Responses convened by the Refugee Studies

Centre, the International Migration Institute and the Oxford

Diasporas Programme in Oxford in March 2012.

Workshop report at www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/publications/rsc-reports/

wr-arab-spring-beyond-120612.pdf/view

Podcasts available at www.forcedmigration.org/podcasts-

videos-photos/podcasts/arab-spring-and-beyond


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The Libya crisis generated a massive inux of migrantsand refugees in Tunisia and Egypt, which might belabelled a mixed migration crisis, and presented severalnew challenges to the humanitarian community. Whilethe huge magnitude of the ows was not unprecedented,nothing approaching that scale had ever happened inthe Mediterranean. The whole international communitywas taken by surprise, particularly in Tunisia which hadnever been aected by any substantial inux of refugees ordisplaced persons. Hence lile prior contingency planninghad taken place.

Furthermore, the composition of the ow was quitenew. Particularly in the rst few weeks, the majorityof the new arrivals were economic migrants and third-country nationals, that is, nationals of neither Libyanor the countries in which they arrived (includingEgyptians in Tunisia). And while they clearly hadhumanitarian and protection needs, the vast majorityof the rst waves of displaced persons who arrived atthe borders were not technically refugees according tothe 1951 Convention. Most had been migrant workersin Libya which was estimated to host as many as twomillion migrants, of whom 600,000 were there legally.

The number of nationalities was also staggering,dozens at a time, and as many as 120 in total, whiletraditionally UNHCR had been used in dealing withone or two in the same inux. Finally, the inux wastaking place in two countries, Tunisia and Egypt,which were experiencing transitions of their own.

There was no pre-existing asylum system in Tunisiaand only a weak one in Egypt that eectively barredrefugees from achieving local integration (particularlyin terms of access to employment and services)and had limited reselement opportunities.

The humanitarian responseThere was an early strategic decision at the highest levels ofUNHCR and IOMs leadership to cooperate closely withina exible interpretation of their mandates (for refugees, andfor migrants more generally, respectively). This strategiccooperation was the key to the success of the operation.UNHCR and IOM reacted very quickly and by the end ofFebruary tented camps were set up in the border areas inTunisia and Egypt, the new arrivals were soon screened andthe evacuation back to countries of origin began in earnest.

The camp locations were selected by the two governments.While Shousha in Tunisia was not ideal (in a ratherturbulent area only 7 km from the border) but acceptable,new arrivals in Egypt were allowed to stay only in theconnes of the fenced precinct of Salloum border area,legally in Egypt but in practice in no-mans land. Therestricted area of the Salloum border was not suitable for acamp within accepted standards, and even permission to

erect a few large communal tents required lengthynegotiations with the Egyptian authorities at dierentlevels. At the beginning of 2012 the Egyptian authoritiesindicated that they will make more land available for therefugees but still within the Salloum fenced border area.

The Humanitarian Evacuation Programme (HEP), jointlyundertaken by IOM and UNHCR, was a crucial componentof the operation. The HEP, announced on 1 March 2011,facilitated the repatriation of as many as 218,000 migrants,mostly by plane, from Tunisia and Egypt, making it

arguably the largest air evacuation in history. UNHCRsrole in the HEP was over by 2 April and, although time-limited, was crucial in supporting IOM in the initial phasebefore this activity was handed over entirely to IOM.

The initial overriding concern was to decongest theTunisian and Egyptian border areas and to providesolutions for these war-aected displaced migrants whowere experiencing what has been called a protectiongap, since they are not covered by international legalinstruments. The objective of the HEP from UNHCRsperspective was to keep the protection space open inTunisia and Egypt for asylum seekers and refugeesnot able to return to Libya nor to their country oforigin. Depending on the denition of protectionspace this impact was at least partially achieved.

Aer the rst waves, the proles of the new arrivals atthe Tunisian and Egyptian border started changing.Although there were still many economic migrants,there were also two categories of refugees (who,unlike the migrants, could not repatriate becauseof protection concerns): Libyans and sub-SaharanAfricans, mainly from Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan.

Of the approximately 150,000 Libyans who crossedprimarily into Tunisia, the rst to arrive were seeking

a temporary safe haven from the conict, and werethen followed by those who were afraid of the politicaltransition. However, Libyan refugees were not in muchneed of international protection and assistance becauseexisting bilateral agreements allowed them full access toTunisian and Egyptian territory and free access to mostservices enjoyed by the local population and those inmaterial need were hosted by local families who showedgreat hospitality and generosity. Hence UNHCRs assistancerole was mainly limited to paying utilities and medicalbills (in Tunisia a limited number of destitute Libyans werealso temporarily assisted in a tented camp and with food).

The same was not true for sub-Saharan Africans, whowere ordered to stay in the Shousha and Salloum campsand could not go any further as neither Tunisia norEgypt was prepared to allow them to enjoy full asylumon their territory but only temporary protection in thetwo camps. Admission had been granted on condition

While the phenomenon of mixed migratory ows has long been recognised, this was the rst time it applied

to a large-scale displacement. It required a coordinated humanitarian response for a large and diverse group ofdisplaced persons.

Bordering on a crisisGuido Ambroso


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that not only all migrant workers but also all refugeesand asylum seekers escaping from Libya (with theexception of Libyans) would leave and the soonerthe beer. These refugees were not only displacedby the war but also traumatised by the anti-Gaddaforces perception that all black Africans had beenemployed to ght for Gaddas regime and they weretherefore also fearful of returning to the new Libya.

Given that repatriation was not an option because ofprotection concerns, the only solution for them wasreselement to a third country. But before individualcases could be submied to reselement countries, athorough refugee status determination (RSD) had to becarried out. A few refugees had already been recognisedby UNHCR in Libya under its mandate but manyothers had never approached the oce. Though thenumbers were not huge (4,276 in Shousha and 1,442 inSalloum by mid August 2011), the variety of nationalities

made the RSD process very cumbersome, with theneed to hire interpreters for many dierent languagesand to identify and deploy additional protection staalongside competing emergencies in West Africa andthe Horn of Africa. These challenges meant that theRSD process took on average more than six months andcreated some frustrations among the asylum seekers;accelerated procedures could not be followed becausethey would not be accepted by reselement countries.

The inux in Tunisia and Egypt may be characterisedas a mixed ow not only because there were migrantswho ed side by side with asylum seekers and refugeesbut also because some of the persons who claimedrefugee status had mixed motivations, partly economicand partly political, to leave their country of originin the rst place. For example Somalis and Eritreanshad gone to Libya to nd work but also had legitimateconcerns about returning to their home countries.

The mix of nationalities also created tensions amongthe camp populations, particularly in Shousha, and bymid May UNHCR and its partners had to divide thecamp into several sections according to the dierentnationalities, a move that was appreciated by thevast majority of the beneciaries who felt much moresecure, at least from a psychological point of view.

Resettlement and emergenciesReselement to a third country is dependent oncommitments made by reselement countries tooer refugees this solution. Unfortunately, mostEuropean reselement countries, which haverelatively speedy reselement procedures, did notsubstantially increase their reselement quotasto cater for this emergency beyond what waspreviously planned, in spite of a UNHCR-led GlobalReselement Solidarity Initiative and a crisis thatwas unfolding on the shores of the Mediterranean.

In contrast, the United States, having a large reselementquota, could absorb the majority of the refugees referredfor reselement even though it has slow proceduresowing to lengthy security checks. As a result, by the endof 2011, as many as 66% of the reselement cases had beensubmied to the US, although only 17% of the refugeessubmied for reselement and 13% of the total number ofpersons of concern to UNHCR had physically departed.

In Egypt the focus on reselement for the new arrivalsfrom Libya created resentment among the existingrefugees in Cairo who, with few prospects of localintegration, had also hoped to be reseled but withsubstantially fewer reselement opportunities than thenew arrivals and hence much longer waiting periods.

It is foreseen that all reselement submissions will benished by mid 2012, thanks also to the mobilisationof a considerable number of reselement ocers on

an emergency basis, a novel development for UNHCR,but the acceptance process and physical departuresare likely to continue well into 2013. One lesson forUNHCR is therefore that while it can undertakereselement in emergencies, it cannot achieve emergencyreselement since it is inevitably a lengthy process.

ConclusionThe joint IOM-UNHCR HEP operation was key toproviding humanitarian assistance, protection andsolutions (through repatriation) to over 200,000 war-aected migrants. Together with the protectionactivities (particularly reselement) and humanitarianassistance provided to refugees in the camps, itshowed the international communitys tangiblesolidarity with Tunisia and Egypt. This had thepositive impact of keeping the borders open.

In this sense, the HEP and the reselement operationhad a positive impact on protection space in Tunisiaand Egypt. If, however, protection space is seen as thepresence of asylum systems in line with internationalstandards, then the impact has been more mixed. Sincethe beginning of 2012 there have been positive signs thatTunisia might eventually adopt an asylum law and putin place a system for asylum seekers and refugees in linewith international standards but the situation in Egypt

appears unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.

The issue of mixed migratory ows is likely to recur andthe strategic cooperation between UNHCR and IOM, aswell as other partners, may therefore have to be activatedagain in the near future. It will also require cooperationand burden sharing from all concerned states and notjust from those directly aected by these movements.

Guido Ambroso [email protected] Policy Development

and Evaluation Ofcer, UNHCR. www.unhcr.org He writes

here in a personal capacity.

Shousha transit camp, Tunisia


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For more than 60 years the 1951 Convention relatingto the Status of Refugees (1951 Refugee Convention)has provided the cornerstone of internationalprotection for displaced persons. It is an importantsource of protection for many of those eeingpopular uprisings in North Africa, having beenratied by many of the destination countries, suchas Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Italy and Malta.1

The broader context of North African displacement,however, highlights some of the limitations of theConventions rather narrow and technical denition of a

refugee, which may exclude many people genuinely inneed of protection. Persons eeing generalised violenceor armed conict, such as occurred in Libya for example,will frequently fall outside the Conventions denitionbecause of their inability to establish a link between therisk of harm they face and one of the ve stated groundsof persecution [see box]. In addition, the Conventionsrefugee denition is conned to persons with a well-founded fear of persecution only in relation to theircountry of nationality. So-called third-country nationals including migrant workers and refugees from other

countries livingand working inNorth Africanstates at thetime of theuprisings areunable to claimprotection underthe RefugeeConvention inrelation to theirfear of harm inthose states.

For personsfalling outside

the scope ofthe RefugeeConvention,a number of

subsequent developments in the protection of forcedmigrants may provide an alternative source of protection.The 1969 Organisation of African Unity ConventionGoverning the Specic Aspects of Refugee Problemsin Africa (1969 OAU Convention) is one such source,designed to address aspects of African refugee protectionnot adequately addressed by the 1951 Convention.3Signicantly, the 1969 OAU Conventions denitionof a refugee extends protection to include any personwho owing to external aggression, occupation, foreigndomination or events seriously disturbing public orderin either part or the whole of his country of origin ornationality, is compelled to leave his place of habitualresidence in order to seek refuge in another placeoutside his country of origin or nationality (Art 1 (2)).

This more readily encompasses displacement causedby situations of widespread conict, such as in Libya.

Like 1951 Convention refugees, refugees under the1969 Convention also benet from the principle of non-refoulement, which prevents them from being returned toa territory where their life, physical integrity or libertywould be threatened. They also arguably benet from thebroad range of refugee rightsset out in the 1951 Convention;although the 1969 Conventionitself does not contain a

comparable list of rights, itsexplicit intention to provide aregional complement to theformer presents a strong case forthe provision of equal rights torefugees under both denitions.

While the scope of the1969 Conventions refugeedenition is broader than its1951 counterpart, it imposesprotection obligations onAfrican states only, and doesnot extend to the more than45,000 people who ed acrossthe Mediterranean Sea toEurope, who must rely on thenarrower 1951 Conventiondenition for refugee status.And even within Africa, OAUConvention refugees maybe denied the opportunityto access durable solutionssuch as reselement, which is generally onlyavailable to refugees under the 1951 Convention.

Refugee status under both the 1951 and 1969 Conventions

is also subject to the instruments respective exclusionand cessation provisions, whereby a refugeesprotected status may be denied where the refugee hascommied a war crime, crime against humanity orother serious non-political crime,4 or may be removedwhere the circumstances in connection with whichhe was recognized as a refugee have ceased to exist5.However, such provisions must be interpreted in lightof each Conventions overall object and purpose which is to provide protection and thus should beapplied cautiously. For example, UNHCR has made itclear that for change in country conditions to warrantcessation of refugee status, that change must besuciently fundamental, stable and durable.6 Whilemany Libyans who le the country during the heightof conict have now returned, the violent nature ofregime change in Libya means it is unlikely to constitutesuciently stable and durable change to warrant thecessation of refugee status in the immediate future.

The large-scale displacement associated with the recent popular uprisings in North Africa both reinforces andchallenges the role of legal protection mechanisms.

Legal protection frameworksTamara Wood

IFRC

The 1951 Refugee Convention, along with

its 1967 Protocol, applies to any person

who owing to well-founded fear of being

persecuted for reasons of race, religion,

nationality, membership of a particular

social group or political opinion, is outside

the country of his nationality and is unable

or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail

himself of the protection of that country

(Art 1A(2)). Persons satisfying this denition

are refugees and benet from a range of

rights under the Convention, including rights

to work, education and housing, as well as

protection from refoulement that is, from

being returned to a place in which their life orfreedom would be threatened (Art 33).2

UNHCR/ABranthwaite


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In addition to the refugee-specic 1951 and 1969Conventions, broader international human rights lawalso provides protection to displaced persons, bothby extending the principle of non-refoulement beyondthose who qualify for refugee status and by stipulatingminimum standards of treatment for all personswithin a given states territory or jurisdiction. TheInternational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights(ICCPR), the Convention against Torture (CAT) andthe Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), forexample, all prevent states from returning people tolocations and situations where they would face harm.

In Europe, these broader non-refoulement obligationshave been implemented under the European Unions

subsidiary protection regime.However, it is worthnoting that the principle of non-refoulement is nowso widely accepted that it is considered a principle

of customary international law; the obligation not toreturn persons to harm is therefore binding on all states,including those not party to any of the relevant treaties.

Outside the protection netThe international and regional protection instrumentsdescribed above reect long-standing legal and normativedistinctions between dierent categories of migrants inparticular, between so-called forced and voluntarymigrants. Mixed migrations ows whereby economic(voluntary) migrants, refugees and other forcedmigrants move simultaneously between states andregions make it dicult to identify those genuinely inneed of protection. In addition, the mixed motivationsof individual migrants challenge the conceptualdistinction between refugees and other migrants.

In the North African context, displaced migrant workersprovide a stark illustration of the challenges that modern

forms of displacement pose to existing frameworks. Asignicant number of Somali, Sudanese and Eritreanmigrant workers, for example, ed Libya to neighbouringcountries such as Egypt and Tunisia. The 1990International Convention on the Protection of the Rightsof All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Familiesprovides important rights for migrant workers in theircountry of residence; however, it does not address theparticular issue of displacement. Where migrant workerscan show that they would face serious harm if returned totheir country of origin, they may benet from the broaderprinciple of non-refoulement but, in general, despite facingsituations of vulnerability equal to, or greater than, manydisplaced nationals, migrant workers are rarely aordedthe special status of many other displaced persons.

The lack of protection under international law forpersons who have not crossed an international border i.e. IDPs is also a noted feature of international and

regional forced displacement governance, althoughthe Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement7and the African Union Convention for the Protectionand Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons inAfrica (Kampala Convention)8 present two signicantdevelopments in this area. In particular, the KampalaConvention adopted unanimously by the African Union(AU) in October 2009 provides binding obligationson African States Party to provide for protection ofpersons displaced within their own borders. Althoughthis is yet to come into eect (requiring raticationby a minimum of 15 AU Member States), the NorthAfrican experience demonstrates the potential futuresignicance of such an instrument in the region.

Perhaps the greatest challenge to protection, however, isin the actual implementation of international and regionallegal protection mechanisms. In many states, both treatyand customary obligations must be incorporated intonational law before they are enforceable at the nationallevel. Where states fail to full their internationalprotection obligations, there are limited opportunitiesfor redress for those aected. While many human rightstreaties have review and complaints mechanisms, suchmechanisms are slow-acting and may bring a result toolate to be meaningful for the complainant. And thereis a conspicuous absence of any equivalent procedures

under refugee-specic protection instruments. Theexperience of displacement in North Africa presentsan opportunity to consider how both internationaland regional legal protection mechanisms mightbe strengthened to ensure that limitations in scopeand implementation do not undermine the overallprotection goals for which they were conceived.

Tamara Wood [email protected] is a Nettheim

Doctoral Teaching Fellow and PhD candidate at the

University of New South Wales. www.unsw.edu.au

1. See Whos signed what section, FMR supplement on Islam, human rights anddisplacement www.fmreview.org/human-rights

2. www2.ohchr.org/english/law/refugees.htm

3. www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6b36018.html

4. 1951 Refugee Convention, Art 1F

5. 1969 OAU Convention Art 1(4)(e); 1951 Refugee Convention Art 1C(5)

6. UNHCR ExCom Conclusion No. 68 (1992)

7. See www.brookings.edu/about/projects/idp/gp-page for all language versions

8. hp://tinyurl.com/Kampala-Convention-En

A Tunisian man hands back passports to Bangladeshi refugees that were

collected by the Tunisian military at the time of crossing the border.


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This article draws on assessment reports and prolingexercises carried out by the International Organizationfor Migration (IOM) to map out needs in areas forreturn and to pave the way for reintegration andcommunity stabilisation programmes. The ndings ofthe assessments reports led to some reintegration projectsbeing started in Ghana for example. The assessmentswere carried out between June and October 2011.1

Nearly 800,000 migrants ed Libya in 2011, of whom212, 331 West African nationals returned to six home

countries2, 130, 677 by direct border crossing fromLibya and 81, 654 with IOM assistance, the majority byair. The vast majority of West African returnees weremales (98-99%), mostly aged between 20 and 40 yearsold, of whom a high percentage held low-skilled jobs inLibya, such as labouring, farming and construction.

It has been estimated that migrant workers in Libyaremied nearly US$1 billion in 2010. The majority ofreturnees were from impoverished and underdevelopedcommunities which experience agricultural failure,food insecurity, malnutrition, an absence of economicopportunities, and inadequate health infrastructureand education services. Labour migration was a keycoping strategy with remiances from returnees playinga major role in household survival. These were usedto meet basic daily needs food, housing, health andeducation and lile was le over for investment. Infact most remiances were spent on food, with nearly90% of remiance income going towards this basicessential in some countries. If money was spent onbuying assets, this tended to be on agricultural assets.

The economic impact of the loss of remiances was felt atindividual family and community levels, although otherndings appear to show that remiances actually hadlile eect on the wider community. Family consumptionwas undoubtedly aected, money for housekeeping anddaily food was a problem, and some had to considerwithdrawing children from schools. The problem seemsespecially acute in places which had suered severe foodinsecurity for years such as Niger or where there was aparticularly heavy dependence on remiances such as inMali. In Niger the abrupt termination of remiances had

a negative eect on local markets and traders. In Senegal,villages with a large expatriate community in Libyasuered acutely; in one village 75% of the village incomewas derived from remiances from Libya or elsewhere.

Reception at homeIOM worked with government and partner agencies toensure reception facilities were in place. This involvedseing up transit centres to provide food, water andsanitation while arranging transportation to naldestinations. In some countries, returnees were metin their home towns with food and accommodationprovided by local authorities and NGOs.

The return and reception of migrants appears to havebeen systematically organised across the countries of WestAfrica but measures faltered, perhaps inevitably giventhe circumstances, when it came to reintegration support.In terms of reception, the approach in Senegal seemstypical of other countries in the region. The governmentmobilised a national commiee with the help of IOMand other agencies to plan a response. This involved

The bittersweet return homeAsmita Naik and Frank Laczko

Migrants left Libya in haste and in fear for their lives. Possessions and valuables were abandoned in the rushto leave. A rapid international response saved lives and facilitated the return home but a premature return mayhave some unwelcome repercussions.

Returnee migrants from Libya to Chad

IOM2

012


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meeting returnees at international airports or at landborder crossings, providing them with basic assistanceand then organising transport for them to get home.

Returnees are back safe and sound but what is muchneeded is reintegration support. In Niger, the governmentissued an order for support to returnees comprisingfood distribution, seed supply, distribution of livestockand cash support. But implementation varied at locallevel. Some local authorities had done lile, and did noteven have a clear registration process; other authorities,while slow to start, had plans in place for cash transfers,cash for work, and strengthening grain banks. In Chadsome regions had set up welcome commiees and werecarrying out registration as a prelude to other activities,while others were doing nothing. In Senegal part of theproblem appeared to be that return was managed atcentral level without the involvement of local authorities

which made for a weak response at local level. In Ghana,despite the stated good intentions of government, noreintegration programme had been started. A returnee inNiger said, Ive been here four months and no supporthas reached us. It seems that something is scheduled forus but it remains blocked for some reason in Niamey.

An important lesson learned is the need to introducespecic measures to facilitate the reintegration of thereturnees in a timely way. An innovative reintegrationscheme for returnees was introduced in Bangladesh[see following article]. It is too early to assess thelonger-term outcomes of this scheme but it couldbe a model for other countries in the future.

The reception on arriving home was a biersweetexperience for many returnees. Reunions were emotional;families were relieved to see family members come homesafely but joy quickly turned to worries about makingends meet and embarrassment among returnees atcoming home empty-handed. Most returnees were frompoor families anyway and the return home heightenedthe vulnerability of already struggling households.

Returnees in all countries found themselves in verydicult circumstances and commonly expressedsentiments of desperation, anxiety and frustration.

Above all, the human tragedy of young men andwomen, suddenly uprooted from their livelihoods, andtransplanted back to a situation of dependency, andfacing a bleak and uncertain outlook, comes acrossforcefully in all the reports. Returnees frequentlytalked of feeling humiliated, and commonly expressedsentiments of despair, anxiety and frustration; of scornand abuse by community members; and of fragileand unstable emotional states of mind. The mostcommon and obvious concerns were employment,daily expenses and housing. In Burkina Faso mostreturnees were living with relatives or friends inhomes made of temporary materials. Some appearedto have problems nding the next meal, and withmeeting the costs of schooling and health care.

Returnees are responding to this situation by turningto a variety of measures to make ends meet. Local bankmanagers in Ghana reported the withdrawal of deposits

and early redemption of xed deposits as well as anincrease in demand for loans. In Burkina Faso, animalswere being sold to meet immediate needs. In both cases,this was in eect cashing in important investments.

Some returnees returned to their former occupationsbut not many had returned with sucient savingsto set themselves up. In all these countries returneeshad ideas about starting new income-generatingactivities, and were keen to do so, but needed moneyand materials to help launch these initiatives.

Apart from money, other key barriers to reintegrationincluded psychological trauma, loss of propertyor investment, and debts. The culture shock ofreturning home seems to have been an issue for some;having got used to a dierent lifestyle in Libya, theywere described by community members as dressing

dierently, standing out and engaging in what wasseen as inappropriate behaviour. In some cases theyappeared unwilling to do the work they did beforeand wanted more skilled work. It is not surprising thatthe assessments found some returnees turning to theidea of migrating again. What is interesting, however,is that most of the returnees were keen on staying athome and adapting to local conditions, if only theycould be assisted to nd jobs or set up enterprises.

In some communities where labour migration was akey coping strategy, such as in Ghana, communitymembers were generally sensitive to the dicultiesfacing returning migrants, and concerned about thesocial instability that might arise if these hardworkingyoung men were unable to nd jobs. By contrast, inBurkina Faso there was lile community support,probably due to a lack of investment by migrantsin their places of origin while they were away.

Conclusion

There is a reasonably clear and consistent pictureacross countries. The eciency of the repatriationoperation carried out by the international community,governments and NGOs, in response to the mostimmediate danger, saved the lives of thousands ofmigrant workers and prevented the Libyan crisis from

spilling over into other countries and turning into amuch larger humanitarian catastrophe. Several monthson, and with immediate security threats at bay, what ismost visible now is the hardship and disappointmentfaced by tens of thousands of young men suddenlyrobbed of the livelihoods they had journeyed so hardto nd, and with no means of helping themselves backhome. Programmes for socio-economic integration are

badly needed not only to help individual returnees andfamilies but also for the peace and stability of widercommunities, countries and the region as a whole.

Asmita Naik [email protected] is an independent

consultant. Frank Laczko [email protected] is Head of

the Migration Research Division in the International

Organization for Migration. www.iom.int

1. The reports are available on request from IOM.

2. Burkina Faso, Chad, Ghana, Mali, Niger and Senegal.


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In February and March 2011, Tunisians were managingthe fallout from their own revolution. Governmentalinstitutions were on hold, and security and policingwere absent in south-eastern Tunisia, the area closestto Libyas western border. Informal but highly eectivecommunity eorts in Tunisia, outside the auspices ofnational and international institutions, played a crucialrole in ensuring the safe passage and accommodation ofhundreds of thousands of people eeing Libya. Initially,as groups of migrant workers crossed into Tunisia enroute to the airport on the Tunisian island of Djerba,Tunisian villagers organised cooking crews, with mencooking together in community centres and womencooking separately in their homes. They took this food

to the airport as third-country nationals waited forights home paid for by the international community.

No sooner had these migrant workers le than Libyanfamilies began streaming across the border in searchof a safe haven and ended up staying for ve to eightmonths. One man on Djerba asked rhetorically, Wehelped the Egyptians, we helped the Chinese, wehelped the Bangladeshis. So when the Libyans came tostay, how could we not help them too? Another said:We were busy with the Tunisian revolution. We weredealing with our own problems and then the Libyanproblem came. A friend called from Ras Jdir at theborder. He said there were masses of hungry people, at

Tunisian people, rather than their government, led the response to the humanitarian crisis when Libyans startedtheir own revolt and people starting eeing across the border.

When evacuated Bangladeshi migrants arrived home, the government, civil society, international organisationsand the private sector cooperated to help them.

Local hosting and transnational identityKatherine E Hoffman

The reintegration programme for

Bangladeshi returneesAnita J Wadud

In 2011, during the rst three weeks of March, 36,594Bangladeshi migrants ed the violence in Libya andreturned to Bangladesh. Returnees were greeted atthe airport by IOM sta who provided assistancewith registration and immigration processing andimmediate medical aention round the clock, sevendays a week for the entire period. The governmentprovided each returnee with food and water on arrival,registered all returnees, gave 1,000 taka (approximately

US$12) for onward transport and arranged for shulebus services to the main bus and train terminals inthe city. Despite the logistical nightmare, constantliaison between IOM Dhaka, IOM eld missions inTunisia and Egypt and the government resulted ina fairly systematic processing of all returnees.

While most were exhausted, they were nonethelesshappy to have returned safely and were eager to see theirfamilies. However, they have returned to large debts andhave le behind possessions and months worth of unpaidsalary in Libya. Many had large suitcases lled withwhatever they could carry but many others returned onlywith the clothes they were wearing and perhaps a blanket.

As soon as the majority of the Bangladeshi migrants hadreturned safely to Bangladesh, talks about reintegrationprogrammes began. The government, civil society,international organisations and even the private sectorheld meetings to discuss ways in which over 35,000returnees could be supported. The government agreedthat the returnees would be given priority for overseasemployment opportunities and the private sector

also agreed to employ some of the returnees; most,however, remained unemployed with lile means ofsupporting themselves and their families. Ultimately,the government obtained a loan of US$40 millionfrom the World Bank with which it reimbursed IOMfor the air-travel costs of 10,000 of the approximately31,000 Bangladeshis IOM had repatriated. With therest of the loan, each Bangladeshi returnee from Libyawas provided with a one-o cash grant of 50,000

taka (approx $600) to meet their immediate needs.

The reintegration programme was implemented inseveral stages. Firstly, through an extensive outreachcampaign the returnees were informed of the programmeand what documents they would need, including theneed for a personal bank account. A comprehensivedatabase of all returnees was developed by IOM fromthe registration conducted by the Bureau of ManpowerEmployment and Training at the airport. A call centrewas set up and its numbers disseminated throughprint and electronic media and texts to returneesphone numbers obtained at the airport. Each returneeused the call centre to make an appointment. Then theVerication Centre went into operation for in-personverication with all relevant documents. This was thelast step in the exhaustive process of identicationof actual returnees before the cash grant of 50,000taka was transferred directly to their accounts.

Anita Jawadurovna Wadud [email protected] a Project

Development and Programme Coordinator with the

International Organization for Migration in Bangladesh.


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least 40,000, and could I help? So I called all my friends,we had a meeting, and we raised money and we boughtfood, diapers and maresses, loaded up twenty pick-uptrucks, and headed to the border to deliver everything.Aer that we went down to where people from theNafusa Mountains were coming in. There everyone isAmazigh [Berber]. Theyre Amazigh, were Amazigh.

Of the hundreds of thousands of Libyans eeing theviolence in their country and going to Tunisia, initiallymost were Amazigh people from the Nafusa Mountains.The closest safe haven for them once inside Tunisiathrough the Dehiba border crossing was a camp runby the Emirates only 13 km from the border. Tunisiansvolunteered as organisers there too, including anentrepreneurial young woman named Insaf who startedworking with Libyan women and children in the campto assess their needs, and then presented programmeproposals to the Emirati and Libyan men in charge ofthe strictly gender-segregated camp activities. A shortwhile later, UNHCR established a camp further northin Ramada and Qatar established one still furthernorth outside the provincial capital of Tataouine.

The logistics of refugee hostingIndividuals with no previous experience in humanitarianassistance arranged for the stay of many of the 60-80,000Libyans who seled mostly in south-eastern Tunisia.Wealthier Libyans rented hotel rooms or sought rentalsituations outside the auspices of these communityorganisers rather than accept charity. But most familiesneeded help.

Some families lived with Tunisian families. In addition,in each village or town, one person took responsibilityfor collecting keys for abandoned houses, emigrantssummer residences and other empty housing. Collectively,villagers cleaned and refurnished these homes, equippedthem with stoves, refrigerators and in some cases washingmachines, and turned the electricity and water back onif necessary. The selement process followed a paern.One or two Libyan families came rst with an organiserfrom the Nafusa Mountains who knew the geography

and customs in southeastern Tunisia.He went directly to villages andasked the local men whether therewas housing for those families andpotentially for others. The Djerbanorganisers then showed the Libyanfamily heads available homes andidentied matches. Locals talkedabout this housing situation as arental, and UNHCR statistics usethe same term, but only rarely didmoney change hands. Even seasonedaid ocials said they had neverwitnessed such a reception by a hostcountry during a refugee crisis.

The shared language and similarcustoms facilitated Libyanintegration into Tunisian villages

and small towns. Since pre-school-aged Libyan children in the NafusaMountains usually only speak

Tamazight, Libyan women felt reassured living amongTamazight speakers. Additionally, the Amazigh groupson both sides of the border tended to be conservative inregards to gender segregation. Libyan men who werecommuting to ght with the rebels needed to feel theycould entrust their wives and daughters to Tunisianhost communities, although while they were in Tunisiamany Libyan women were required to assume rolesthey previously would have allocated to men, such astaking children to the doctor or procuring rations.

Solidarity and its discontentsIn early to mid 2011, Libyans and Tunisians told storiesof solidarity. Over a main street of the market townof Tataouine hung a handwrien banner in Arabicreading Welcome to our Libyan brothers. The supportwas fortunate, as Libyans doubled the population ofthe town from 40,000 to 80,000. A Libyan woman inDouiret showed her hand that had been hennaed bya Tunisian woman who oered her tea en route to theselement camp. She also described a planned marriagebetween a young Libyan woman in the Dehiba campand a Tunisian aid worker. People narrated incidentssuch as these as evidence of good relations between

Tunisians and Libyans in the midst of crisis signallingthe kind of integration of displaced populationsthat is possible when communities share values.

Yet by Ramadan in August 2011, disillusion andtension had set in. The public welcome banners weregone, and stocks of basic necessities like milk, datesand gasoline were running low. With the NationalTransitional Councils seizure of Tripoli, increasingnumbers of pro-Gadda supporters and army defectorspoured into Tunisia. It was increasingly hard to tellwhich refugees were on which side of the conictbut Tunisian host communities continued to assumethe neutral stance of the humanitarian groups they oered food and housing to those in need.

Katherine E Hoffman [email protected] is

Associate Professor of Anthropology at Northwestern

University. www.anthropology.northwestern.edu

KatherineE.

Hoffman

Youth hostel in Douiret, Tunisia, converted for use by Libyan refugee families.


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The countries neighbouring Libya were not in a positionto provide more than temporary refuge for many peoplewho had experienced multiple displacement from theircountries of origin and previous countries of asylum.

I am very happy but also fearful, says Tigi1, a21-year-old Eritrean woman who has been living inShousha camp in southern Tunisia since the earlydays of the war in Libya and who has been selectedto go through a reselement programme to Australia.She ed her country when she was 15 years old,rst to Sudan and then Libya. Life in Libya was

very dicult. I worked as a domestic worker.

Musse has been less lucky. Also from Eritrea, his

reselement application to Norway and USA has beenrejected and his life is about waiting. Going back toLibya now is not an option. Sub-Saharan Africans arebeing detained and tortured. Some of his friends wentback to Libya to take a boat towards Europe. They arenow in Italy. We have to wait for a slow solution here inthe camp, so they decided for the quick solution. We areyoung but time is against us. Talking to these youngmen, one realises how many of them are ready to risktheir lives taking a boat for Lampedusa or Malta. Manysay, The alternative is Shousha, so what can I lose?

Extended stay in Shousha camp poses considerable risksto families with small children, unaccompanied minors,persons with serious medical conditions and othervulnerable persons. Reselement is, for the time being, theonly realistic durable solution for the refugees in Shousha.But there has been a limited response by Europeancountries thus far in providing reselement spaces for

refugees living in Shousha camp with the majority ofrefugees being submied to the US. However, vulnerablecases face signicant diculties because of the slowerprocessing time of the US (6-12 months before departureis the norm). In addition, some refugees in Shousha campwill be ineligible to be submied for reselement to theUS due to its restrictive approach to persons perceivedto be aliated to certain opposition groups. Alternativesolutions need to be found for these individuals.

Of the people who are stranded in Shousha, more andmore are going back to Libya, despite facing serious risks

there, in order to board boats for Europe and embark on aperilous sea journey. Thomas from Nigeriasays, Arriving in Lampedusa is a questionof luck. If you fail, ok; if you succeed, itsne.2 One needs to have courage in life tocontinue moving forward. Here we arestuck but how can we go back to Nigeriaempty-handed? Our families paid so wecould earn money to send it back home.If we could go back at least with somemoney, we would not feel ashamed. IfIOM and UNHCR were to provide somenancial assistance to migrants (as wellas assistance in terms of transportationand documentation), they would be in abeer position to decide to go back home.

Given their proximity to the aectedregion and their comparatively greaterresources, EU Member States should betaking a leading role in responding tothe grim situation of these refugees. EUMember States bear a heavy responsibilityfor the way in which in recent yearsthey have ignored Libyas dire humanrights record on the one hand, while

actively seeking the collaboration of Colonel Gaddas

government to stem the ow of people arriving inEurope from Africa, on the other. The policies ofthe EU resulted in serious violations of the humanrights of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants.

EU countries poor reselement response so far tothe plight of displaced refugees on Europes doorstepalso ignores the fact that some European countries,by participating in NATO operations in Libya, havebeen party to the very conict that has been one of themain causes of the involuntary movement of people.

Amaya Valcrcel [email protected]

International Advocacy Coordinator in the Jesuit Refugee

Service. www.jrs.net

1.The names used in this article are not their real names.

2. In 2011 the Mediterranean took the record for being the deadliest stretch of water inthe world: more than 1,500 people drowned or went missing (and these numbers maybe an underestimate).

With Tunisia experiencing wide-ranging political, social and economic change, there is an imperative need toalleviate the burden of hosting people eeing Libya who are unable to return to their countries of origin.

Resettlement is needed for refugees in TunisiaAmaya Valcrcel

Sudanese refugee says farewell to friends in Shousha camp. She and

her family have been accepted for resettlement in Norway.

UNHCR/RNuri


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By post-conict standards, Libya has relatively fewinternally displaced persons (IDPs) but many of these,including several entire displaced communities, facethe prospect of protracted internal displacement.For households that remain displaced within theirown towns due to the wartime destruction of theirhomes, durable solutions are largely contingent onreconstruction. However, for IDPs displaced awayfrom their places of origin, inability to access pre-war homes and properties is merely a symptom ofthe broader insecurity that has blocked virtually all

return to date. In most cases, IDPs also face signicantinsecurity of tenure in their current locations.

Lurking behind both the insecurity currently facingIDPs and their diculties accessing pre-war propertyare much broader questions related to the sweepingredistributions of property waves of conscation andpartial compensation undertaken under the Gaddaregime. These acts are largely viewed as illegitimate

by the interim National Transitional Council but thereis broad recognition that any peremptory aempt torevoke them would risk destabilising the country.While IDPs and some refugees in Libya may bemost immediately aected by such legacy propertyissues, almost every constituency in the country andmany in the diaspora have a stake in their resolution.

During the Gadda period, foreign-owned propertywas nationalised and Libyan-owned propertyredistributed. For example, Law No. 4 in 1978transformed all tenants into owners of the homesor land they rented. Subsequent eorts to regulateand enforce this measure included the 1986 public

burning of property records in the main squaresof Libyas towns. Later eorts to partially reversethis policy through restitution and compensationfor conscated property were still underway at the

time of the uprising. Property relations under theGadda regime were symptomatic of a broaderhollowing out of the state and the rule of law, thenet eect of which was to undermine trust in therule of law and public institutions generally.

Unable to return, unable to remain

During the uprising, a number of cities and townssuered extensive destruction and several communitieswere subjected to mass displacement. Broadly speaking,IDPs are either those temporarily displaced withintheir own communities due to the wartime destructionof their homes or large groups or communitiesdisplaced and unable to return due to oppositionfrom the communities in their place of origin. Thelaer are clearly of greatest concern and most at r iskof nding themselves in situations of protracteddisplacement. Although property issues remain asubsidiary concern to basic security, IDPs who acquired

their homes in connection with Law No. 4 fear thattheir legal rights may be revoked in their absence.

In the meantime, the most obvious problems relateto IDP camps, which have typically been establishedon the sites of half-nished construction projects, aswell as in public buildings and resort villages. Thelack of any clear legal basis for occupation of thesesites presents clear risks to residents, especiallywhere such sites may be subject to claims by foreigncompanies returning to Libya. As a result of this lack

of security of tenure, IDPs are unable to undertakebasic improvements necessary to ensure conditions ofbasic adequacy and have been exposed to threats ofeviction that have, in some cases, been carried out.

Many other IDPs are thought to be living in private

accommodation, either with family or friends or inprivate rental situations. Experience from other seingsindicates that unless IDPs in private accommodationare able to integrate and, in particular, to ndemployment, they are likely to expend whatevergoodwill and resources they currently enjoy, andnd themselves facing eviction from their currentaccommodation without a clear fallback option.

Whatever combination of return and integration-ledlocal strategies is ultimately adopted to resolve internaldisplacement in Libya, implementation of the right of IDPsto remedies for the loss of their properties will need tobe coordinated with broader eorts to come to grips withthe Gadda-era legacy of contested property relations.

Rhodri C Williams [email protected] is a human rights

consultant based in Stockholm, Sweden. He is the author of

the TerraNullius blog: http://terra0nullius.wordpress.com/

Inability to access pre-displacement housing, land and property poses a signicant obstacle to the achievement

of durable solutions for most IDPs in Libya. Displacement and dispossession cannot be separated from thelegacy of the Gadda era.

Dispossession and displacement in LibyaRhodri C Williams

Tripoli Street, Misrata.

UNHCR/HCaux


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In the heady days of the Arab Spring in 2011, even asprotesters in Tahrir Square took up a chant proclaimingWe are all Egyptian, many refugees and migrantsin Egypt were facing increased xenophobia, overtracism and violence. The Egyptian Foundation forRefugee Rights (EFRR) recorded its busiest yearin 2011 as the number of refugees complaining ofarbitrary arrest and detention, acts of violence andacts of discrimination increased by over 20%.

Until recently refugees in Egypt found a reception policythat has been characterised as benign neglect. The

chief complaints by refugees before the revolution werethe lack of access to public schooling, discrimination inemployment and housing, arbitrary arrest, and criminalvictimisation (by both Egyptians and other refugees).In addition, reselement has eectively stopped beingavailable for most refugees (except Iraqi refugees andparticularly vulnerable refugees). Such changes inreselement and status determination policies resultedin a mass protest and sit-in lasting 90 days outsideUNHCRs Cairo oce at the end of 2005 one of themost signicant acts of public protest in Egypt in thedecade before the revolution, a protest crushed by theEgyptian security forces with the loss of at least 26 lives.

In the uncertainty of the revolution, refugees werethe object of suspicion. The propaganda of the failingMubarak regime that the country was under siegefrom foreign agitators in conjunction with the notionthat refugees were in Egypt thanks to the policies ofthe Mubarak regime triggered widespread hostility,refusal of services, proteering, threats and violenceagainst refugees. In one case, a 49-year-old singlemother Iraqi refugee was accused by a neighbour ofhoarding weapons and being a foreign instigator.Her home was raided by the Egyptian militaryand she was forced to nd housing elsewhere.

The change in the nature of policing also had a profoundeect on refugees. During the revolution, policingdevolved to self-appointed local popular commiees,which oen erected barricades and armed themselveswith knives and other basic weapons. Some commieesdid not allow refugees to join and even refugees who werelong-standing residents of mixed neighbourhoods werequestioned and harassed when moving about. However,some refugees report that they were welcomed to joincommiees and a signicant number report feeling thatbeing a member of a commiee was the only contributionthat they were allowed to make to the revolution.

Even in the aermath of the revolution, the use of themilitary to perform civilian policing has posed newchallenges for refugees. At a basic level, soldiers arenot familiar with refugee identity documents and thelegal category of refugee. This has resulted in severalrefugees being arrested and threatened with immediate

deportation. Fortunately, in these cases the lawyersof EFRR managed to intervene and have the refugeesreleased (though not before they had been taken to theairport).

Since the revolution EFRRs lawyers have had to visitclients in their homes because travel in Cairo has becomemuch more dicult for refugees and was impossiblefor periods of time during the revolution. UNHCRclosed its oces in Egypt for almost two weeks duringthe revolution. During this time refugees were unableto access not only registration and status determination

but also protection services and nancial assistance. Theoce closure was mitigated by UNHCRs use of localNGOs to disburse nancial assistance. However, manyrefugees complained about the lack of transparencyof payments and suspected corruption even withinwell-established local NGOs. To UNHCRs credit,it learned from the revolution and shorter closuresthat occurred later caused much less disruption.

As well as UNHCR, local NGOs also closed theiroces. The largest providers of services to refugeeswere all located near the epicentre of the revolution,and this posed problems both for sta geing to workand also refugees aending at their oces. Those thatrely heavily upon international sta and internationalinterns suered arition as sta members le Egypt.

Moving forward

The revolution brought a ood of aention to civilsociety in Egypt, leading to increased fundingopportunities. The ood of money has brought withit public aention to the nancing of civil societyactivities in Egypt. In particular, a very publicexpansion of funding of Egyptian civil society bythe US government has led to much hostility in theEgyptian media. While civil society organisationshave for at least the last decade worked under fairly

severe restrictions, the revolution prompted a crackdown on NGOs which has had a chilling eect on allcivil society organisations, including refugee serviceproviders, notwithstanding that none of them couldfunction without funding from outside of Egypt.

Somewhat surprisingly in this environment, there hasbeen a growth in interest by refugees in organisingthemselves into community-based organisations(CBOs). While there have been refugee CBOs in Cairofor a long time (particularly amongst well-establishedcommunities such as various Sudanese ethnicities), sincethe revolution a growing number of groups of refugeeshave approached EFRR with a view to formalisingthemselves as CBOs. Some of this interest may arise outof the isolation of the revolution and a desire to mitigatesuch a situation in the future. Alternatively, some ofthis interest may be emerging out of the new senseof opportunity and freedom felt by many in Egypt.

For many refugees in Egypt the weeks of the revolution were marked by isolation, fear and brutality. In theaftermath of the revolution, the promise of greater freedom has not yet been extended to refugees.

We are not all EgyptianMartin Jones


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The migration dimension of the Libya crisis has engagedwith a growing debate over the crisis-migration nexus.A migration crisis that is, a disaster creating large-scale population movements that are complex in termsof the persons aected and the routes taken to placesof safety and survival can signicantly challengeexisting humanitarian systems that were designed forrefugee or IDP response, as it brings to light dierent

categories, needs and vulnerabilities of a wider rangeof persons who are aected by a crisis situation.

The requirement for immediate or predictable responsesto crises is certainly nothing new to the humanitariandiscussion. However, if the populations in questionare migrants (whose safest haven is in most cases theircountries of origin), achieving rapid, predictable, ecientand appropriate responses requires us to re-considersome aspects of meeting humanitarian needs, includingroles, coordination and the institutional architecture.

States bear the primary responsibility to protect andassist crisis-aected persons residing on their territoryin a manner consistent with international humanitarianand human rights law. Where needed, states shouldallow humanitarian access to crisis-aected personsso that humanitarian assistance can be provided by

other states, including those whose nationals have beenaected, and other relevant actors. Modern-day criseshave oen overwhelmed the resources and capacities ofstates to provide this protection and assistance to theirnationals in times of crisis. As a result of its mandate,operational resources, experience and expertise inmovement management, the International Organizationfor Migration (IOM) has come to be relied upon as

the lead agency to support states in acting upon theirobligations to crisis-aected migrant populations. Theintegration of migration management and humanitarianapproaches when dealing with a crisis situation thatis generating complex paerns of human mobility hasbeen particularly important in developing an ecientreferral system to assist migrants with a variety ofvulnerabilities and protection needs when eeingin large numbers across an international border.

In the crisisIn the rst six weeks of the humanitarian crisis in Libya,on average a total of more than 7,000 persons a day werearriving at the borders of Tunisia, Egypt, Chad, Niger andAlgeria and by sea into Malta and Italy. Those eeingto Libyas neighbouring countries and beyond includedmigrant workers and their families, refugees, asylumseekers, unaccompanied children, tracked victims, and

The 2011 Libya crisis brought into sharp focus how global migration patterns are re-dening the range and type

of needs and vulnerabilities of persons affected by a humanitarian crisis.

Protecting and assisting migrants caught

in crisesMohammed Abdiker and Angela Sherwood

A growth in civil society has increased the mobilityof experienced managers and made recruitmentof experienced sta more dicult. All refugeeservice providers are now competing for sta withmainstream civil society organisations with higherpolitical proles and oen oering higher salaries.

Establishing the rule of lawThe revolution has posed challenges for the rule of law,among its casualties being the national human rightsinstitutions of Egypt with which, in recent years, refugeeNGOs had been able to engage to the benet of refugees.

The biggest dangers to refugees in Egypt remain theignorance and indierence in all political parties torefugees. Faced with long-standing pressing demandsfrom citizens, refugee issues have been furthermarginalised. Since the revolution, most politicalactors have focused on citizens as being the principal

rights bearers in Egypt; most of the rights in theConstitutional Declaration 2011 are extended only tocitizens. Thus, despite the opportunity presented bythe new political freedom brought by the revolution,advocates for refugees have been forced to largelyfocus on maintaining basic rights (such as non-refoulement) rather than extending refugee rights.

ConclusionThe chaos and uncertainty of the revolution and thediscrimination it has released have resulted in anincrease in human rights violations against refugeesand made all refugees more vulnerable. As a sign of thefear felt by refugees, a growing number of them are,at the time of writing, staging a public protest (begunin March 2012) outside the Cairo oces of UNHCR.They demand either reselement or secure segregatedhousing. (Ironically for one of the pilot sites of UNHCRsnew urban refugee policy, the revolution has maderefugees advocate for a policy of urban encampment.)

The new governments policies and practices towardsrefugees, along with the views of the Egyptian public,will be one of the rst indicators of the extent to which thefreedom and inclusion promised by the revolutionariesof Tahrir Square have been genuinely realised.

Martin Jones [email protected] is vice-chairman ofthe Egyptian Foundation for Refugee Rights and a lecturer

at the Centre for Applied Human Rights of the University

of York (UK). EFRR staff members Mohamed Bayoumi,

Ahmed Badawy, and Sara Sadek contributed to this article.

www.efrr-eg.com


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others with special vulnerabilities. A number of migrantsremained trapped inside the conict zone; IOM extracted35,000 such migrants from high-risk environments.

IOM was requested by 46 governments to protectand assist aected migrant populations. In thebeginning of the response, however, a number ofdiscussions and advocacy eorts were requiredwithin the international community to re-orient theinitial humanitarian strategy. Eventually camps wereused mainly as transit facilities to support timelyevacuation, instead of as places to receive protectionand assistance as in a prolonged displacement crisis.

An evacuation operation for migrants from multipleorigins is a demanding exercise and required devisingnew types of coordination between governments,international humanitarian actors, migrationmanagement authorities, consular ocials, militaryactors and transportation companies. The Libya crisisresponse illustrates a remarkable level of international

cooperation and drive by countries of origin andtransit, and those providing external assistance.

In addition, the necessity for migration managementservices in order, for example, to manage themovement of populations crossing the border, ensurea robust referral mechanism for persons with specialvulnerabilities or protection needs, and provide traveldocuments and Laissez-Passers to migrants withoutdocumentation has also emerged as a central andoen disregarded aspect of such a crisis response.

While only 3% of the crisis-aected migrants stranded inLibya made their way to Europe oen on unseaworthyvessels it is widely speculated that, without the abilityto accept immediate assistance to return home, a muchlarger number of migrants would have been vulnerableto human tracking and smuggling rings promising aroute out of the crisis area and into Europe and beyond.

Looking aheadClearly, a migration crisis such as that which developedin Libya has the potential to produce paerns of forcedmigration that do not show the typical characteristicsof movement anticipated and prepared for ininternational humanitarian responses. Elaboratingupon the vulnerabilities of migrants naturally raisesquestions about the general preparedness of statesto provide protection and assistance to all of theirnationals residing abroad in the event of a crisis. Inthe aermath of the Libya crisis a number of Asiancountries have acknowledged the need to beer managehumanitarian evacuations at the national and regionallevel and, just as importantly, the need to support thereintegration of their nationals who return home tosituations of unemployment and possibly even debtfrom having funded a long migration journey.

The Libya crisis highlighted how understandingglobal migration paerns can assist in craing a moreecient and humane response, since the plight and

special needs of migrants add signicant complexityto crisis responses. It also demonstrated the broadchallenges faced by migration management systemsinside a humanitarian response. Among the dierentmigration management tools that are relevant to ensurea humane and eect

forced migration - north-africa

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