The challenge of keeping refugee camps demilitarised

What should be done about populations of forced migrants containing both civilian refugees and combatants? How should UN peacekeepers and refugee officials co-operate with each other? Does involvement of the military in disarming armed refugees compromise principles of neutrality?

A paper by Queen’s University, Belfast, explores the legal and operational dilemmas in preserving the humanitarian nature of refugee camps. Examining how a group of exiled soldiers from the Central African Republic (CAR) were separated from a larger group of refugees who had fled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the paper analyses the implications for future co-operation between the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations.

Armed men threaten the physical safety of refugees, compromise the neutrality of aid work, are a security threat to the host nation and challenge the institution of asylum. The presence in Rwandan refugee camps in Zaire and Tanzania of people who took part in acts of genocide, and the problem of intimidation of refugees by militia (a military force raised from the civilian population) in West Timor have focused attention on the scale of the problem.

Is military force the only way to keep armed combatants out of refugee settlements? The UN Secretary General has acknowledged there may be the need for an international force to secure refugee camps but aid agencies are worried about the implications for the safety of humanitarian personnel, and for the agencies’ ability to preserve their neutrality while assisting victims on all sides of a conflict.

An estimated 25 000 civilians of the CAR fled their homes in May 2001 following a failed coup attempt and the subsequent retaliations against the ethnic Yakoma group believed to be behind it. Joining them across the border in the DRC were an additional 1 000 members of the CAR armed forces and their families.

The UNHCR and the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC (MONUC) eventually moved the ex-combatants with their families and the civilians to two separate locations. In operational terms, the co-operation was successful. It provided protection to a civilian refugee population by separating and encamping armed elements in a different location. Problems commonly associated with militarised refugee populations - such as the fear of intimidation, child soldier recruitment and attacks on civilians - were avoided.

However, the UNHCR overlooked its own rules by giving support to combatants. Warning that the operation does not provide a template for future operations, the report notes a number of unusual factors:

• Local authorities were able to identify a combatant presence before the population was encamped.
• The combatants were, to a large extent, readily identifiable as such.
• High-level contact between the UN Secretary General and the UNHCR head Ruud Lubbers got the chosen course of action underway.
• The ex-combatants were not actually armed. This spared the UN from needing to contemplate seriously whether to give the peacekeepers a mandate to disarm the combatants by force, which would have been a politically arduous task.

The mission highlights the need to reconcile the humanitarian mandate of protection with the military’s capacity (or lack thereof) to separate civilians from armed elements. Key recommendations urge the UNHCR and other UN actors to:

• strengthen the capacity to identify situations of mixed flows before the process of encampment begins
• be vigilant in ensuring that civilian family members are not put in danger by their inclusion with ex-combatant relatives
• accept that a military force mandated with coercive powers may be required when ex-combatants are believed to be armed and unlikely to move of their own choice.

Source(s):
‘Separating ex-combatants and refugees in Zongo, DRC: peacekeepers and UNHCR’s ladder of options’, New Issues in Refugee Research, Working Paper 60, Evaluation and Policy Analysis Unit, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), by Lisa Yu, 2002 Full document.

Funded by: UNHCR

id21 Research Highlight: 23 July 2003

Further Information:
Evaluation and Policy Analysis Unit (EPAU)
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Case Postale 2500
CH-1211 Genève 2 Dépôt
Switzerland

Tel: +41 22 739 8111
Contact the contributor: hqep00@unhcr.ch

Contact the contributor: lisayu01@hotmail.com

Evaluation and Policy Analysis Unit, UNHCR

Other related links:
'Is the UNHCR doing its job? Combining refugee relief with local development in Africa'

'Are refugee camps good for children?'

'Meeting the needs of refugee children: is UNHCR protection sufficient?'

'Education for repatriation: providing refugees with vocational skills'

'What are refugee camps good for? The plight of refugees in sub-Saharan Africa'

'Responding to displacement: Balancing needs and rights' Insights #44

See id21's links page on refugee issues