Forced Migration Online: Blog

Forced Migration Online has recently published a new resource summary, focusing on Algeria.

The summary provides an outline of present and historical causes of forced migration within Algeria. It also gives an overview of Algeria’s relationship to various international refugee conventions and its role as host to several thousand refugees including the Sahrawi, as well as refugees from Palestine and Sub-Saharan Africa.

All our summaries provide links to key resources, websites and documents exploring contemporary debate on on key issues, in forced migration as well as links to wider issues concerned with human rights and displacement. Our full collection of resource summaries, focusing on specific regions and themes, can be accessed from the links below.

• Algeria resource summary
• Regional Resource Summaries
• Thematic Resource Summaries

A new series of podcasts, recorded at a regional presentation in Amman, on the situation of Iraqi refugees, is now available from Forced Migration Online. The presentation was jointly organized by the Refugee Studies Centre and the Regional Human Security Centre (RHSC) in Amman, Jordan.

Based on a recent RSC Policy Briefing on Iraq’s refugees – beyond tolerance, this one-day event provided a platform for an open discussion  on the situation of Iraqis displaced internally and Iraqis displaced in the region.

The keynote address was given by HRH Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan. Other participants included:

• Dr Nasir Al-Samaraie, Adviser to the Iraq Head of Delegation, International Committee of the Red Cross
• Dr Philip Marfleet, Associate Director, CMRB, University of East London
• Dr Dawn Chatty, Deputy Director, RSC, University of Oxford
• Professor Adel Tweissi, Secretary General of the Higher Council of Science and Technology
• Mr Abed El-Baset Al Kabariti, Ministry of Interior, Government of Jordan
• Mr Arafat Jamal, UNHCR Deputy Representative in Jordan
• Ms Liana Paris, Displacement Monitoring Officer, IOM Iraq Mission

Key principles for consideration by policy makers were presented and discussed. The emphasis was on protection and durable solutions to displacement.

• Listen to the Podcasts
• Read: “Iraq’s refugees – beyond tolerance”
• Subscribe via iTunes

Issue 34 of Forced Migration Review (FMR) is now available in the digital library. This issue focuses on the topic of “Urban Displacement”.

Articles explore the complexity of the challenges faced by those displaced into urban areas and by those seeking to protect and assist them, and argue for the need for a radical rethinking of approaches by the international community.

The issue also includes a spotlight on Haiti and the use of standards to shape response and recovery after the earthquake in January, plus a selection of articles on subjects such as Mauritania, South Africa, Timor-Leste, Colombia, Pakistan, the new Kampala Convention, family separation in the UK, cross-border mobility of Iraqi refugees, and maternal mortality among conflict-affected populations.

FMR is also published in French, Spanish and Arabic.

Forced Migration Online’s latest resource summary, which complements FMR 34, is also available to view online. It provides links to key resources, websites and documents exploring contemporary debate on these issues, as well as links to wider issues concerned with human rights and displacement.

Full Issue

• FMR 2010, No. 34:  Urban Displacement
  

Resource Summary

• Urban Displacement

Individual Articles

• Adapting to urban displacement
• Meeting humanitarian challenges in urban areas
• Protection challenges for persons of concern in urban settings
• Urban displacement and migration in Colombia
• Invisibility of urban IDPs in Europe
• Profiling urban IDPs
• Improving living conditions in Bossaso, Somalia
• The poor and the displaced in Khartoum
• The journey towards social exclusion in Colombia
• Desperate lives: urban refugee women in Malaysia and Egypt
• Urban refugee health: meeting the challenges
• Support systems among urban IDPs in Georgia
• Education and self-reliance in Egypt
• Urban shelter and the limits of humanitarian action
• Refugees and space in urban areas in Malaysia
• Urban IDPs in Uganda: victims of institutional convenience
• Transition, connection and uncertainty: IDPs in Kampala
• Urban Somali refugees in Yemen
• Displacement within the city: Colombia
• The role of municipal authorities
• Surviving in the city
• ATM cash assistance: does it work?
• Cities of Solidarity: local integration in Latin America
• City of Sanctuary – a UK initiative for hospitality
• Hosting ‘the enemy’
• “Legitimate” protection spaces: UNHCR’s 2009 policy
• Using standards to shape response and recovery in Haiti
• Beyond good intentions: implementing the Kampala Convention
• Norwegian Refugee Council: Shade netting: simple design – effective relief
• RAISE Initiative: The blind spot of the Millennium Development Goals
• International Displacement Monitoring Centre: Displacement in urban areas: implications for humanitarian action
• Cross-border mobility of Iraqi refugees
• Non-nationals displaced in South Africa
• Social mobilisation in IDP camps in Pakistan
• Flexible mandate for protection
• IDP camp closure and gender inequality in Timor-Leste
• Family breakdown in Bogotá
• Living death: separation in the UK
• Voluntary repatriation and the participation of Mauritanian refugees

‘Iraq’s refugees – beyond tolerance’ by Dr Philip Marfleet and Dr Dawn Chatty, the latest in the series of Refugee Studies Centre Forced Migration Policy Briefings, is now available online.

This policy brief considers the situation of displaced populations within Iraq’s national borders and of communities of Iraqis living under difficult circumstances in a number of Middle Eastern states.

The paper suggests that despite military and policy discourses of renewed stability in Iraq, the crisis is far from over and that mass return is unlikely as long as security remains a key concern. It presents some key principles for consideration by policy makers in government, in migration agencies and in the humanitarian networks and recommends that further research should be conducted on the scale, circumstances and patterns of movement of Iraqis within and beyond the Middle East.

• Policy brief

This podcast was recorded at the Refugee Studies Centre’s Annual Harrell-Bond Lecture which was on Wednesday 18th November 2009 at the Museum of Natural History, University of Oxford. The Harrell-Bond Lecture is held annually in honour of Dr Barbara Harrell-Bond, founding former director of the Centre and of the academic field of refugee studies or forced migration studies. Jan Egeland, former UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator and currently director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs gave the 2009 lecture on the subject of political deals and durable solutions for the displaced.

• Podcast
• Subscribe via iTunes

Issue 33 of Forced Migration Review: Protracted displacement is now available in the digital library (FMR is one of five journals available).

Increasingly, growing numbers of displaced people remain displaced for years, even decades. This latest issue of FMR includes 29 articles by academic, international and local actors which assess the impact of such situations on people’s lives and our societies and explore the ‘solutions’ – political, humanitarian and personal.

The issue also includes a spotlight on the ‘internment camps’ in Sri Lanka and a mini-feature on Collective centres, plus a selection of articles on other aspects of forced migration such as rights and responsibilities in Darfur, smuggling in South Africa, IDP health needs in Colombia, climate change agreement talks, peace mediation, and community resilience in East Timor.

FMR is also published in French, Spanish and Arabic and the other language editions will follow soon.

A resource summary to complement FMR 33 is now available on Forced Migration Online and provides links to related key resources websites and documents.

Full Issue

• FMR 2009, No. 33: Protracted displacement

Individual Articles

• Sri Lanka: a question of rights
• Protecting housing rights for IDPs in Sri Lanka
• Understanding the challenge
• Doubly forgotten
• Riding on the back of a tortoise
• Listening to the experiences of the long-term displaced
• Crisis and displacement in Somalia
• Addressing core problems
• Repatriation to Afghanistan: durable solution or responsibility shifting?
• Unfinished business: IDPs in Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Europe’s IDPs still marginalised
• Darfur: a way of life lost
• Comprehensive solutions: a ‘whole-of-government’ approach
• Daring to dream of an end to exile in sub-Saharan Africa
• Local integration in West Africa
• Durable solutions for Burundian refugees in Tanzania
• Burundi: seven years of refugee return
• Refugees: asset or burden?
• Refugee resources: Sri Lankan Tamils in India
• Displacement shock and recovery in Cyprus
• Local integration for refugees in Serbia
• Displacement, decentralisation and reparation in post-conflict Peru
• Peacebuilding in displacement
• Importance of access to financial services
• Hope and opportunities for young people
• Sudanese refugee youth ‘gangs’ in Cairo
• Activism among a new generation of Palestinian exiles
• Use of housing vouchers in Georgia
• Confidence-building measures in Western Sahara
• Refugees and mobility
• A regime at a loss?
• A missing element of ‘camp management’
• When ‘temporary’ lasts too long
• Rights and responsibilities in Darfur
• South Africa’s smugglers’ borderland
• IDP health in Colombia: needs and challenges
• Towards a humanitarian climate change agreement
• Protracted Muslim displacement in Sri Lanka
• Internal displacement and peace mediation
• Community resilience in rural East Timor

The film ‘Jenin‘ is now available to view online. Jenin is a documentary film depicting the events before, during and after the Israeli invasion of the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank on 5 April 2002. Produced by the Palestinian Return Centre and directed by Mohammed Bakri, the film documents the events through a series of interviews with some of the Palestinians effected.

• Jenin
• Subscribe via iTunes

This podcast was recorded at the International Gender Studies Centre’s Kaberry Commemorative Lecture which was on Thursday 27th May 2009 at St Anne’s College, University of Oxford. The Rt Honourable Professor The Baroness Afshar gave the lecture on the subject of Peace and Reconstruction in the Middle East: Where are the Women?

• Podcast
• Subscribe via iTunes

The film ‘Yemen: Refugees crossing the Gulf of Aden‘ is now available to view online. The film reports how thousands of people risk their lives every year to cross the Gulf of Aden to escape from conflict, violence, drought and poverty.

During 2007, almost 30,000 took the dangerous voyage to seek relative safety in Yemen. Due to the escalation of the conflict in Somalia and the food crisis in parts of the Horn of Africa, more and more people are joining the already large refugee and migrant population in Yemen. During the first five months of 2008 over 20,000 arrived, more than double the number of arrivals in the same period last year.

• Yemen: Refugees crossing the Gulf of Aden
• Subscribe via iTunes

The film ‘Iraqis in Egypt: Time is Running Out’ is now available to view online. The documentary looks at the lives of six Iraqi families who have been forced to flee their homes and are now living as refugees in the massive urban sprawl of Cairo. As the years pass by, their situations are becoming increasingly desperate, with little or no rights in their country of first asylum.

• Iraqis in Egypt: Time is Running Out

UPDATE: Visit iraqisinegypt.org for the latest media releases, films, podcasts and more.