Case studies refugee movements

1. Rwanda genocide: 100 days of slaughter

In just 100 days in 1994, some 800,000 people were slaughtered in Rwanda by ethnic Hutu extremists. They were targeting members of the minority Tutsi community, as well as their political opponents, irrespective of their ethnic origin.

Why did the Hutu militias want to kill the Tutsis?

About 85% of Rwandans are Hutus but the Tutsi minority has long dominated the country. In 1959, the Hutus overthrew the Tutsi monarchy and tens of thousands of Tutsis fled to neighbouring countries, including Uganda. A group of Tutsi exiles formed a rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which invaded Rwanda in 1990 and fighting continued until a 1993 peace deal was agreed.

On the night of 6 April 1994 a plane carrying then President Juvenal Habyarimana, and his counterpart Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi - both Hutus - was shot down, killing everyone on board. Hutu extremists blamed the RPF and immediately started a well-organised campaign of slaughter. The RPF said the plane had been shot down by Hutus to provide an excuse for the genocide.

How was the genocide carried out?

With meticulous organisation. Lists of government opponents were handed out to militias who went and killed them, along with all of their families. Neighbours killed neighbours and some husbands even killed their Tutsi wives, saying they would be killed if they refused. At the time, ID cards had people's ethnic group on them, so militias set up roadblocks where Tutsis were slaughtered, often with machetes which most Rwandans kept around the house. Thousands of Tutsi women were taken away and kept as sex slaves.

Did anyone try to stop it?

The UN and Belgium had forces in Rwanda but the UN mission was not given a mandate to stop the killing. A year after US troops were killed in Somalia, the US was determined not to get involved in another African conflict. The Belgians and most UN peacekeepers pulled out after 10 Belgian soldiers were killed. The French, who were allies of the Hutu government, sent a force to set up a supposedly safe zone but were accused of not doing enough to stop the slaughter in that area. Rwanda's current president has accused France of taking part in the massacres - a charge denied by Paris.

How did it end?

The well-organised RPF, backed by Uganda's army, gradually seized more territory, until 4 July, when its forces marched into the capital, Kigali. Some two million Hutus - both civilians and some of those involved in the genocide - then fled across the border into DR Congo, at that time called Zaire, fearing revenge attacks.

Human rights groups say the RPF killed thousands of Hutu civilians as they took power - and more after they went into DR Congo to pursue the Interahamwe. The RPF denies this. In DR Congo, thousands died from cholera, while aid groups were accused of letting much of their assistance fall into the hands of the Hutu militias.

What happened in DR Congo?

The genocide in Rwanda has directly led to two decades of unrest in DR Congo, which have cost the lives of an estimated five million people. Rwanda's government, now run by the RPF, has twice invaded DR Congo, accusing its much larger neighbour of letting the Hutu militias operate on its territory. Rwanda has also armed local Congolese Tutsi forces. In response, some locals have formed self-defence groups and the civilians of eastern DR Congo have paid the price.

2. Syrian refugee crisis

More than 5.6 million people have fled Syria since the conflict began, and half of them are children.

The Syrian refugee crisis remains one of the largest humanitarian crises since the end of World War II. The number of refugees who have fled the country now exceeds five million, including more than 2.4 million children, and millions more have been displaced internally, according to the United Nations.

Syrians have poured across their borders since anti-government protests in 2011 spiralled into a full-blown war between rebels, government troops and foreign backers.

How and when did the Syrian refugee crisis start?

The flow of Syrian refugees to neighbouring countries started during the onset of the civil war in 2011.  The Arab Spring in Tunisia, Egypt and other Arab countries inspired protests in Syria, prompting a crackdown by the Syrian army. As Syria descended into a civil war, it became divided into a complex battle between the government, rebel groups and foreign backers. By May 2011, the number of refugees crossing the Turkish border was estimated at just 300. Syrian crisis has also resulted in large numbers of IDPs.

Idlib province is the last major stronghold of the rebel and jihadist groups which have been trying to overthrow Mr Assad for the past seven years.

The UN says Idlib is home to some 2.9 million people, including 1 million children. Almost half of the civilians in Idlib are IDPs who come from other previously rebel-held parts of Syria from which they either fled, or were evacuated. The province also borders Turkey, to the north, and straddles major highways running south from Aleppo to Hama and the capital, Damascus, and west to the Mediterranean coastal city of Latakia.

If Idlib is taken by the government, it would leave the rebels with a few pockets of territory scattered across the country and effectively signal their final defeat.

Those affected most significantly are often children. Between 2011 and 2013, 13,600 child casualties have been recorded. Almost 3,000 of these were aged 13-17, and 42% of dead children did not have their ages recorded.

3. Drought and climate change = Landgrabbing

Displaced by drought and conflict, rural Somalis have been heading to Mogadishu in their tens of thousands. They get no safety or support and are increasingly targeted for forced evictions, but they are still coming.

Sudan's temperature is expected to increase significantly. By 2060, it's projected to rise between 1.1 °C and 3.1 °C. As a result of hotter climate and erratic rainfall, much of Sudan has become progressively unsuitable for agriculture and villages.

One million Somalis were displaced by drought and conflict in 2017, according to OCHA, the UN office that coordinates humanitarian aid.

The rains in Somalia have underperformed for four successive seasons and today everyone – from farmers in the previously fertile south to pastoralists herding camel further north – has felt the impact. Irregular rain has ruined crops, and the country is experiencing both droughts and floods -- making arable land unsuitable for cultivation and displacing more than 600,000 people due to flood-related disasters since 2013

Smallholder farmers are producing smaller harvests; water points have become scarce; and large numbers of livestock have died in a drought Somalis now refer to as “the leveller” due to its far-reaching effects.

Their livelihoods withering away in front of them, many rural Somalis have few options but to migrate to the large towns in the hope of finding new sources of income.

In a recent technical study, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization noted that 2.7 million Somalis are still in urgent need of emergency assistance.

It could have been far worse. Somalia was one of four countries where famine was feared in 2017. Aid was dramatically scaled up and, as a result, food security has markedly improved, according to the FAO report.

But Mogadishu has seen a surge in internally displaced people (IDPs) escaping the drought and violence in the countryside who now squat in makeshift camps on increasingly valuable private land. The response from the authorities has been to clear them.

On the 29th and the 30th of December 2017, 21 IDP settlements were destroyed on the outskirts of Mogadishu. Witnesses described bulldozers and vehicles arriving early on the morning of the 29th, demolishing homes and schools, and forcing more than 5,000 families to flee for settlements further from the city.

“The evictions were done with no prior consultations, and numerous requests by the community for time to collect their belongings and to safely vacate were not granted,” noted the Somali NGO Consortium. Many of those displaced were forced to move into areas where al-Shabab maintains a presence, making access by aid organisations more difficult. According to the Norwegian Refugee Council’s “eviction tracker”, some 11,000 IDPs are evicted on a monthly basis in Mogadishu, with a total of 153,682 people made homeless in 2017. Displaced people – some squatting in what were once abandoned districts but are now some of the most desirable real estate and commercial locations – find themselves extremely vulnerable.

Head of Program for the World Food Programme (WFP) in Sudan, Marco Cavalcante, told CNN it's not too late to change the country's future. "This trend is not unstoppable if important measures are taken."

Strategies include drought resistant crop varieties that can withstand shifting climate conditions, more efficient irrigation technologies and improved crop storage. The WFP also has helped Sudan construct "haffirs" (water reservoirs) to help retain water and boost crop yields in years of poor rainfall.

Communities are also being taught how to plant trees to help combat desertification -- which Cavalcante says has a "substantial impact" on Sudan's future.

4. Ethiopia 'forcing out thousands in land grab'

Ethiopia is forcing tens of thousands of people off their land so it can lease it to foreign investors, leaving former landowners destitute and in some cases starving, Human Rights Watch has said.

The country has already leased three million hectares – an area just smaller than Belgium – to foreign farm businesses, and the US rights group said Addis Ababa had plans to lease another 2.1 million hectares. The United Nations has voiced concern that countries such as China and Gulf Arab states are buying swathes of land in Africa and Asia to secure their own food supplies, often at the expense of local people.

Human Rights Watch said 1.5 million Ethiopians would eventually be forced from their land and highlighted what it said was the latest case of forced relocation in its report, Ethiopia: Forced Relocations Bring Hunger, Hardship. "The Ethiopian government under its 'villagisation' programme is forcibly relocating approximately 70,000 indigenous people from the western Gambella region to new villages that lack adequate food, farmland, healthcare and educational facilities," it said. "The first round of forced relocations occurred at the worst possible time of year – the beginning of the harvest. Government failure to provide food assistance for relocated people has caused endemic hunger and cases of starvation."

Government officials deny the charge and say the affected plots of land are largely uninhabited and under-used, while it has also launched a programme to settle people in more fertile areas. Ethiopia says its intention in leasing large chunks of land is technology transfer and to boost production.

According to Ingbresten (2017) the main motivation for land grabs in Ethiopia is water. Land leasing is cheap – just $1 per hectare per year on average, with the main investors in land in Ethiopia being Saudi Arabia and India, both countries with huge water deficits. The water-rich Gambella region of Ethiopia has gone from zero land investments to nearly 900 in just 10 years. This has resulted in more th an 40% of Gambella’s land being leased. Failing urgent action in Gambella region, UNICEF fears a further downward spiralling of violence and suffering heaped on the shoulders of the women and children of Gambella. UNICEF programs and the programs of other humanitarian agencies will serve only as band-aids on the otherwise festering wounds of the region.

Relocations have been marked by threats and assaults, and arbitrary arrest for those who resist the move. The state security forces enforcing the population transfers have been implicated in at least 20 rapes in the past year. Fear and intimidation are widespread among affected populations.