Refugee camp

Refugee camp for Rwandans located in what is now eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo following the Rwandan Genocide.

A camp in Guinea for refugees from Sierra Leone.

Nahr el-Bared, Palestinian refugee camp in North Lebanon in 2005.

A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees. Camps with over a hundred thousand people are common, but as of 2012 the average camp size is around 11,400.^[1] Usually they are built and run by a government, the United Nations, or international organizations, (such as the Red Cross) or NGOs.

Refugee camps are generally set up in an impromptu fashion and designed to meet basic human needs for only a short time. Due to crowding and lack of infrastructure, some refugee camps are unhygienic, leading to a high incidence of infectious diseases, including epidemics. If the return of refugees is prevented (often by civil war), a humanitarian crisis can result. "Refugee camp" typically describes a settlement of people who have escaped war in their home country and have fled to a country of first asylum, but some camps also house environmental migrants and economic refugees.

Some refugee camps exist for decades and people can stay in refugee camps for decades, both of which have major implications for human rights. Some camps grow into permanent settlements and even merge with nearby older communities, such as Ein el-Helweh and Deir al-Balah.

Facilities

Facilities of a refugee camp can include the following:^[2]

• An administrative headquarters to coordinate services
• Sleeping accommodations (frequently tents)
• Hygiene facilities (washing areas and latrines or toilets)
• Clinics, hospitals and immunization centers
• Food distribution and therapeutic feeding centers
• Communication equipment (e.g. radio)
• Security, including protection from banditry (e.g. barriers and security checkpoints) and peacekeeping troops to prevent armed violence
• Places of worship
• Schools and training centers (if permitted by the host country)
• Markets and shops (if permitted by the host country)

Schools and markets may be prohibited by the host country government in order to discourage refugees from settling permanently in camps.

In order to understand and monitor an emergency over a period of time, the development and organisation of the camps can be tracked by satellite.^[3]

Duration

People may stay in these camps, receiving emergency food and medical aid, until it is safe to return to their homes. In some cases, often after several years, other countries decide it will never be safe to return these people, and they are resettled in "third countries," away from the border they crossed. Although camps are intended to be temporary, it is possible for camps to remain in place for decades. Some Palestinian refugee camps have existed since 1948, while other well-known camps such as Buduburam in Ghana have hosted populations for over 20 years.

Work and employment in refugee camps

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has a policy of helping refugees work and be productive, using their existing skills to meet their own needs and needs of the host country, to:

"Ensure the right of refugees to access work and other livelihood opportunities as they are available for nationals... Match programme interventions with corresponding levels of livelihood capacity (existing livelihood assets such as skills and past work experience) and needs identified in the refugee population, and the demands of the market... Assist refugees in becoming self-reliant. Cash / food / rental assistance delivered through humanitarian agencies should be short-term and conditional and gradually lead to self-reliance activities as part of longer-term development... Convene internal and external stakeholders around the results of livelihood assessments to jointly identify livelihood support opportunities."^[4]

If enough aid is provided to refugees, it can help host countries too, through stimulus effects.^[5] However refugee support does not usually provide cash to create effective demand,^[6] and refugees without cash are restricted by host countries lest they depress wages and opportunities for locals. Host countries also sometimes wish to avoid cultural and political changes that integrating refugees would cause.

Exportation

Globally, about 17 countries (Australia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States) regularly accept "quota refugees" from refugee camps.^[7] In recent years, most quota refugees have come from Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Liberia, Somalia, and Sudan, which have been in various wars and revolutions, and the former Yugoslavia, due to the Yugoslav wars.

Notable refugee camps

Darfur refugee camp in Chad

• Camps in the east of Chad, such as Breidjing Camp, hosting approximately 250,000 refugees from the Darfur region in Sudan (since 2002)
• Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, hosting 144,000 Syrian refugees as of July 2013, although the population in November 2013 had dropped to around 112,000 as the Syrian civil war continues.^[8]
• Buduburam refugee camp, home to more than 12,000 Liberians^[9] (opened 1990)
• Camps in the south of Chad, hosting approximately 50,000 refugees from Central African Republic^{[citation needed]}
• Dadaab refugee camps (Ifo, Dagahaley, Hagadera) in North Eastern Kenya, established in 1991 and now hosting more than 400,000 Somali refugees^{[10][11][12][13]}
• Palestine refugee camps (opened from 1948 and forward)
  

  Aerial view of Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan, July 18, 2013.
• Camps on the Thai-Cambodian border between 1979 and 1993: Nong Samet, Nong Chan, Sa Kaeo, Site Two, Khao-I-Dang
• Philippine Refugee Processing Center for Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian refugees fleeing wars in Indochina.
• Sahrawi refugee camps near Tindouf, South Western Algeria (opened circa 1976)
• Camps for Sri Lankan Tamils, established in India in 1983, with over 110,000 refugees by 1998^[14]
• Immigrant camps (Israel) (1947–1950) and Ma'abarot transition camps (1950–1963) to accommodate Jewish refugees and immigrants in Israel.
• Niatak refugee camp of Afghan refugees in Iran.
• Lampedusa immigrant reception center for refugees, asylum seekers and illegal immigrants on the Italian island of Lampedusa.
• Ras Ajdir refugee camp on Libyan-Tunisian border, housing more than 30,000 Libyan refugees(opened 2011)^{[citation needed]}
• Hatay Province (Turkey) camps for refugees of the Syrian civil war (opened 2011)
• Dzaleka Refugee Camp in the Dowa District of Malawi^{[citation needed]}.
• Ħal Far, Malta for African illegal immigrants.

Nong Samet Refugee Camp on the Thai-Cambodian border, May 1984

See also

• Displaced persons camp
• Tent city
• Transitional shelter
• United Nations Border Relief Operation which administered camps in Thailand 1982-1993.
• United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
• United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Refugee camps.

• Camp Management Toolkit published by Norwegian Refugee Council
• Shelter Library Resource for organisations responding to the transitional settlement and shelter needs of displaced populations
• Refugee Camp in the Heart of the City. An awareness raising touring event organized by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)
• U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants' Campaign to End Refugee Warehousing in refugee camps around the world, people are confined to their settlement and denied their basic rights.
• Refuge Essay on Life in a Refugee Camp
• Thai-Cambodian Border Camps
• An Assessment of Sphere Humanitarian Standards for Shelter and Settlement Planning in Kenya’s Dadaab Refugee Camps
• The open source and open hardware OLPC One School Per Child Initiative link Refugee Camps