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TIMOR-LESTE: IDPs begin to return home as security improves

DILI Thursday, March 20, 2008 (IRIN) - A month after the attacks in Timor-Leste that left rebel leader Alfredo Reinado dead and President Jose Ramos Horta wounded, some of the 30,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) living in camps throughout Dili, the capital, are returning home. The security situation appears to have improved considerably, according to UN and government sources, since the death of Reinado and many of his followers. The 600 former defence force troops with grievances...

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Mahamat Oumar Ismael, "Go back to Darfur? Not even in my dreams"

SAM OUANDJA Wednesday, November 26, 2008 (IRIN) - Mahamat Oumar Ismael is one of 3,000 Sudanese refugees who fled the conflict in Darfur and have lived since 2007 in camps near Sam Ouandja, in the northwest Central African Republic. Security, he told IRIN, is the absolute priority for his family and the other refugees in the camp. "On 14 May 2007, we saw planes in the sky over Dafak [a town of 50,000 people in Darfur]. They bombed the town and we had to abandon everything and flee. We left on...

TIMOR-LESTE: Tens of thousands of IDPs prepare for more flooding

DILI Friday, October 10, 2008 (IRIN) - Tens of thousands of people are preparing for their third bout of flooding since 2006 in camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) as the rainy season once again descends on Timor-Leste. The government has so far helped over 7,500 families return home in 2008 and is planning to close more camps soon, but many IDPs will face heavy flooding once again and in some cases landslides in the coming months. "Our idea is to prepare for the rainy season as if...

NEPAL: Bhutanese refugees find new life beyond the camps

KATHMANDU Monday, November 10, 2008 (IRIN) - Thousands of Bhutanese refugees in Nepal have been successfully resettled in seven countries, including the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands, Norway, Denmark and Canada, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).The refugees are Bhutanese citizens of Nepalese origin, (http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=77513) known as Lhotsampas in Bhutan. For the past 17 years, nearly 106,000 refugees have been sheltered in seven camps in...

BANGLADESH: Rohingya refugee camps improved

KUTUPALONG Friday, November 07, 2008 (IRIN) - Conditions for thousands of Rohingya refugees at two government-run camps have improved, thanks largely to policy changes from the authorities in the past two years, aid workers say.There are 28,000 documented Rohingya living in the camps in the southeast district of Cox’s Bazar – remnants of a mass influx of this ethnic, linguistic and religious minority when 250,000 fled Myanmar’s western Rakhine state in 1991.“Things have progressed over the...

ZAMBIA: Refugees facing food shortages

LUSAKA Thursday, November 06, 2008 (IRIN) - A funding shortfall is jeopardising food supplies to about 3,000 of the most vulnerable refugees living in two of Zambia's largest camps, a senior UN refugee agency (UNHCR) official has told IRIN. "We have received communications from WFP [World Food Programme] stating that from 2009 they will stop providing food to refugees at the Meheba and Mayukwayukwa refugee settlements. This is due to circumstances beyond their control: they don't have funding...

KENYA: UN warns of humanitarian crisis in Dadaab camps

NAIROBI Monday, November 17, 2008 (IRIN) - An influx of asylum-seekers fleeing violence in Somalia to the refugee camps in Dadaab in north-eastern Kenya is causing overcrowding that could lead to a humanitarian crisis, UN officials have warned. The refugee population in Dadaab has risen to 224,000 from 171,000 in January. "Poor shelter, sanitation and a shortage of non-food items are posing a great challenge to the new refugees, especially now that the rainy season is here," said Liz Ahua,...

KENYA: Security improves in Mt Elgon but fear remains

Security in the MtElgon region of western Kenya, where the army was deployed in March to stop alocal insurgency, has improved, but civilians still fear being targeted in theongoing operation. "There is an improved sense of security and peopleare able to access the markets more," Sokwony Laikong, a local resident,told IRIN on 10 April. Most farmers were now able to reach their gardens,although they were suffering from high prices of inputs, such as fertilizer. Many schools remained closed in...

Uganda: Sustainable-livelihood projects to benefit 40,000 in the north

TheInternational Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is launchingsustainable-livelihood projects that will benefit up to 40,000 internallydisplaced people and returnees in their home areas in northern Uganda.Itseconomic-security activities for war-affected people in Acholi districts arebeing adapted to fit evolving needs. Also, the ICRC’s new cash-for-work andincome-generating schemes will complement its large-scale seed distributionprogrammes, which came to an end in March 2008. Households...

KENYA: Floods hit thousands, including IDP camps

At least 6,000 people have been affected by flooding following heavy rains in the southern coastal district of Taveta, the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) said. "Three primary schools have also been closed temporarily after being submerged," Anthony Mwangi, the KRCS Public Relations Manager said on 1 April. "The water levels in some areas are up to chest level." Groups of people have been marooned, with transport services also affected, he said. The hardest hit areas include the villages...