refugees

Zimbabwean migration blurs the line between refugees and economic migrants, according to a report by the Forced Migration Studies Programme at the University of the Witwatersrand.

The study looks into the official responses to Zimbabwean migration in Botswana, Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique and found that they failed to take this distinction into account.

The government of Sudan plans to close down camps for the displaced population in the war-torn region of Darfur in 2010.

Humanitarian Aid Commissioner, Hasabu Abdel-Rahman, points out that some 20 000 housing units are being constructed to accommodate the homeless in the towns of El-Fasher, El-Geneina and Nyala.

Abdel-Rahman says the displaced people will have the choice of returning to their village if they do not want to move to the new housing complexes.

The primary villain in the Central Methodist Church (CMC) Zimbabwean refugee saga is not Bishop Paul Verryn, but government, according to the South African Council of Churches (SACC).

In a press statement responding to a surprise visit to the church by the Gauteng portfolio committee on health and social development last week, the SACC describes their visit as “understandable, yet rather late”.

African leaders have gathered in the Ugandan capital of Kampala for a two-day summit aimed at agreeing on a treaty on improving the plight of the continent's 17 million refugees and displaced.

The Convention on the Protection and Assistance of the Displaced People in Africa is the first of its kind aimed at internally displaced people, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Malusi Gigaba, has announced that his department is finalising an integration strategy encompassing induction training for asylum seekers and refugees.

Gigaba, who maintains that South Africa has no provision for the ‘basic induction’ of foreigners, says the proposed training will provide answers to such questions as “what is SA, what is its constitution, human rights, languages, and what type of people do we have?”

The Human Rights Associations Forum (FADH) at the refugee centre of Maratane, in the Mozambican northern Nampula province, has written a letter to the Provincial Police Command reporting alleged cases of abuse by the chief of the local police substation in the centre.

Besides the alleged acts of torture, the Maratane branch of the FADH, also denounces alleged misplacing of complaint papers filled by some asylum seekers, victims of ill-treatment.

Human rights organisations have welcomed the release of more than 300 Zimbabwean refugees, saying their arrests have been unreasonable.

In a joint press statement, Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR), the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) and the AIDS Law Project (ALP), point out that, "Dropping the spurious charges of loitering strengthens our conviction that homeless people are being targeted just because they are homeless and vulnerable."