Refugee camp

Refugee camp for Rwandans located in what is now eastern Congo-Kinshasa 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 Ain al-Hilweh, Lebanon and Deir al-Balah, Palestine.

Refugee camps may sometimes serve as headquarters for recruitment, support and training of guerrilla organizations engaged in fighting in the refugees' country of origin, often using humanitarian aid to supply their troops.^[2] Rwandan refugee camps in the Zaire^[3] and Cambodian refugee camps in Thailand^[4] supported armed groups until their destruction by the military.

Facilities

Facilities of a refugee camp can include the following:^[5]

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^[6] and analyzed via GIS.^[7]^[8]

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, the host country government may prefer to see that refugees are resettled in "third countries" which accept refugees seeking asylum. In other cases, the host country government may choose to forcibly repatriate refugees to their country of origin, in violation of international law.

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."^[9]

If enough aid is provided to refugees, it can help host countries too, through stimulus effects.^[10] However refugee support does not usually provide cash to create effective demand,^[11] 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.

Refugee tents at Arbat Transit Camp for Syrian Refugees in Sulaymaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan, March 2014.

Refugee resettlement

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.^[12] In recent years, most quota refugees have come from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Liberia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and the former Yugoslavia which have been disrupted by wars and revolutions.

In the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Jewish refugees were initially resettled in refugee camps known variously as Immigrant camps, Ma'abarot, and "development towns" prior to absorption into mainstream Israeli society. Conversely, many Palestinian refugees remain settled in Palestinian refugee camps, while others have been absorbed into Jordanian society or the Palestinian territories. Since 1948, the sovereign State of Israel has guaranteed asylum and citizenship to Jewish refugees, while the self-declared State of Palestine remains unable to absorb the Palestinian refugees, due to lack of de facto sovereignty over its claimed territories.

Notable refugee camps

Darfur refugee camp in Chad

Camps for Syrian refugees in Iraqi Kurdistan, including Domiz in Dohuk Governorate,^[13]^[14] Arbat in Sulaymaniyah, and Qushtapa, Basirma, Gawilan, Kawergosk and Darashakran in Erbil Governorate.^[15]
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.^[16]
Buduburam refugee camp, home to more than 12,000 Liberians^[17] (opened 1990)
Camps in the south of Chad, hosting approximately 50,000 refugees from Central African Republic
Dadaab refugee camps (Ifo, Dagahaley, Hagadera) in North Eastern Kenya, established in 1991 and now hosting more than 400,000 Somali refugees^[18]^[19]^[20]^[21]
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:^[4] 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^[22]
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)
Hatay Province (Turkey) camps for refugees of the Syrian civil war (opened 2011)
Dzaleka Refugee Camp in the Dowa District of Malawi.
Ħal Far, Malta for African illegal immigrants.