Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
In 2010 the United Nations reported that festering
war and confl ict in the world was diminishing the num-
ber of refugees who were repatriated (returned home) each
year. The High Commissioner on Refugees stated that a
majority of the world's refugees had been refugees (and not
repatriated) for more than fi ve years. Most refugees move
without any more goods than they can carry with them.
When the United States and its allies began their retalia-
tory bombing in Afghanistan following the terrorist attack
on New York and Washington in September 2001, tens of
thousands of Afghan refugees climbed across mountain
passes to reach the relative safety of Pakistan, able only
to bring a few personal belongings. Most refugees make
their fi rst “step” on foot, by bicycle, wagon, or open boat.
Refugees are suddenly displaced, limiting their options,
and most have few resources to invest in their journey. As a
result, the vast majority of the world's refugees come from
relatively poor countries and travel to neighboring coun-
tries that are also poor. The impact of refugee fl ows is cer-
tainly felt most in the poorest countries of the world.
price for it. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan at the
end of 1979, in support of a puppet regime, as well as
Afghan resistance, generated a double migration stream
that carried millions westward into Iran and eastward into
Pakistan. At the height of the exodus, 2.5 million Afghans
were estimated to be living in camps in Iran, and some
3.7 million gathered in tent camps in Pakistan's northwest-
ern province and in southern Baluchistan. The Soviet inva-
sion seemed destined to succeed quickly, but the Russian
generals underestimated the strength of Afghan opposition.
U.S. support for the Muslim forces in the form of weapons
supplies helped produce a stalemate and eventual Soviet
withdrawal, but this was followed by a power struggle
among Afghan factions. As a result, most of the more than
6 million refugees in Iran and Pakistan, about one-quarter
of the country's population, stayed where they were.
In 1996, the Taliban, an Islamic Fundamentalist
movement that began in northwest Pakistan, emerged
in Afghanistan and took control of most of the country,
imposing strict Islamic rule and suppressing the factional
confl icts that had prevailed since the Soviet withdrawal.
Although several hundred thousand refugees moved back
to Afghanistan from Pakistan, the harsh Taliban rule cre-
ated a countermigration and led to further refugee move-
ment into neighboring Iran, where their number reached
2.5 million. Eventually, Afghanistan became a base for anti-
Western terrorist operations, which reached a climax in the
attack on the United States on September 11, 2001. Even
before the inevitable military retaliation began, and despite
efforts by both Pakistan and Iran to close their borders, tens
of thousands of Afghan refugees fl ooded across, intensify-
ing a refugee crisis that is now nearly a quarter-century old.
Amidst the crises in Israel/Palestine, Iraq, and
Afghanistan, nearly every country in Southwest Asia is
currently experiencing the impact of refugees.
North Africa and Southwest Asia
This geographic region, extending from Morocco in the
west to Afghanistan in the east, contains some of the world's
longest-lasting and most deeply entrenched confl icts that
generate refugees. A particularly signifi cant set of refugee
problems center on Israel and the displaced Arab popula-
tions that surround it. Confl ict in Afghanistan has lasted
more than 30 years, generating the largest refugee fl ow in
the world today. Instability in the Persian Gulf in 1991 and
again since 2001 accounts for the second largest refugee
fl ow in the world. In sum, over half of the refugees world-
wide today come from Afghanistan and Iraq alone.
The Gulf War of 1991 and the current war in Iraq
have generated millions of refugees in the region. In 1991,
in the aftermath of the Gulf War that followed Iraq's inva-
sion of Kuwait, a signifi cant percentage of the Kurdish
population of northern Iraq, threatened by the surviving
military apparatus and under Baghdad's control, aban-
doned their villages and towns and streamed toward and
across the Turkish and Iranian borders. The refugee move-
ment of Iraq's Kurds involved as many as 2.5 million people
and riveted world attention to the plight of people who are
condemned to such status through the actions of others. It
led the United States and its allies to create a secure zone
for Kurds in northern Iraq in the hope of persuading dis-
placed Kurds in Turkey and Iran to return to their coun-
try. But this effort was only partially successful. The events
surrounding the Gulf War severely dislocated the Kurdish
people of Iraq; as Figure 3.18 shows, many remain refugees
in Turkey as well as Iran. The current war in Iraq has gen-
erated over 2 million refugees, most of whom are living in
neighboring Syria and Jordan, and over 1.5 million IDPs.
During the 1980s, Afghanistan was caught in the
Soviets' last imperialist campaign and paid an enormous
Africa
Africa's people are severely affl icted by dislocation, not just
in terms of the 2 million refugees accounted for by interna-
tional relief agencies, but also millions more are internally
displaced persons. The impact of refugee and IDP fl ows
in Subsaharan Africa is exacerbated by extreme poverty,
corruption, and disease in many parts of the region. For
Africans who live in countries experiencing civil war or
brutal dictatorships, each day is a humanitarian crisis.
During the last decade of the twentieth century and
the fi rst years of the twenty-fi rst, several of the world's
largest refugee crises occurred in Subsaharan Africa. In
the 1990s and early 2000s, refugee fl ows in West, Central,
and East Africa combined to put Subsaharan Africa at the
head of the world's refugee fl ows. In 2011, the number of
refugees in Subsaharan Africa pales in comparison to the
number in North Africa and Southwest Asia.
Although Subsaharan Africa is not politically stable,
most refugees from the crises in West Africa were repatriated.
