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By Joel Frushone

During 2003, progress toward peaceful resolutions of longterm conflicts and voluntary refugee repatriation dominated the headlines, largely overshadowing fresh violence and new displacement in Africa. Although many long-term conflicts officially ended in 2003, uncertainty in the minds of refugees and internally displaced persons—primarily over continued dangerous conditions at home and lack of tangible fundamental change in returnee areas—hindered significant repatriation.

Tentative Peace In Congo-Kinshasa, the formation and inauguration of a transitional national government—an unprecedented blend of members of the previous government, former rebel groups, unarmed opposition members, and representatives from civil society—brought the country’s deadly five-year civil war to an official end in July 2003. At the same time, instability and isolated pockets of violence— primarily between ethnic groups in Congo-Kinshasa’s wartorn eastern provinces—forced 1 million or more civilians from their homes. The most egregious violence during 2003 occurred in the northeastern Ituri region, where fighting between rival ethnic Hema and Lendu militias killed more than 1,000 civilians and displaced several hundred thousand others, including more than 20,000 who fled to Uganda. An estimated 50,000 Congolese have died during clashes between these groups since 1999. Despite the end of major conflict, few uprooted Congolese returned home during the year. At least 3.6 million Congolese remained displaced at year’s end, including more than 3.2 million internally displaced civilians and nearly 440,000 refugees.

In Liberia, sustained attacks by rebel groups to overthrow the government and mounting international pressure, including the deployment of UN peacekeepers and U.S. soldiers to the war-wracked country, ended the deadly reign of President Charles Taylor, who was forced into exile in Nigeria in mid-2003. Taylor’s regime was responsible for more than a decade of violence and massive human rights violations that uprooted 1.5 million Liberians and left at least 200,000 dead. Violence in and around the capital, Monrovia, kept hundreds of thousands of already uprooted Liberians on the run from June to August. During battles for the control of Monrovia approximately 1,000 civilians died. The clashes also displaced some 15,000 Sierra Leonean refugees who repeatedly refused offers of assistance from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to return home. Although UNHCR stated it would not implement a repatriation program to Liberia during 2003, an estimated 10,000 Liberian refugees spontaneously returned home from Sierra Leone, Ghana, and other West African nations late in the year. Chosen by warring factions and civil society leaders, Liberian businessman Gyude Bryant was sworn in as interim president in November. Despite the new government and the presence of some 4,000 UN peacekeepers, violence continued to displace Liberians at year’s end.

In Côte d’Ivoire, a French-brokered peace accord and the installation of a power-sharing government in early 2003 did little to stem unrest between the government and northern-based rebel groups. Once an island of stability in troubled West Africa, Côte d’Ivoire erupted in civil war in late 2002 and remained bitterly divided in half at the end of 2003. Separated by a 30-mile (50 km) wide “comfort zone” created and patrolled by some 5,000 French and Economic Community of West African States soldiers, the Ivorian government controlled the south while rebel groups maintained their hold on the north. The presence of armed militias and general lawlessness prevented tens of thousands of Ivorians and third country nationals displaced during the civil war—primarily persons of Burkinabe and Malian heritage—from returning to their homes during the year. It also impeded UN and international humanitarian agencies from conducting assessment missions to areas the Côte d’Ivoire conflict affected most. Nearly 5,000 Liberian refugees who fled to Côte d’Ivoire in the mid-1990s were resettled in the United States during 2003.

In Sudan, violence in the western region of Darfur marred significant negotiations aimed at ending 20 years of civil war between Sudan’s Islamic government in Khartoum and the mainly southern Christian and animist Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Fighting erupted in the Darfur region in February between government-backed troops and militias and the nascent Sudan Liberation Army and Justice and Equality Movement and continued through year’s end, forcing an estimated 800,000 Sudanese from their homes. Of the newly uprooted, some 100,000 fled to the eastern deserts of neighboring Chad, where humanitarian relief was slow to arrive.

In Burundi, President Pierre Buyoya, an ethnic Tutsi, peacefully transferred power in mid-2003 to Vice President Domitien Ndayizeye, an ethnic Hutu—giving hope for the return of some 400,000 refugees who fled during the past 10 years of ethnic strife. Parallel negotiations between the transitional government and the Forces for National Liberation (FNL)—Burundi’s holdout Hutu rebel group—to end the country’s civil war proved fruit-less, however. FNL attacks on civilians and government targets continued unabated, newly displacing 1 million Burundians from their homes during the year. At the same time, nearly 85,000 Burundian refugees repatriated from camps in western Tanzania, including some 45,000 who returned home spontaneously and with no international assistance to areas deemed unsafe by UNHCR.

Fresh Violence and New Displacement Violence and instability forced more than 4 million people from their homes in Sudan, Burundi, Congo- Kinshasa, Uganda, and Liberia. Unresolved as well as new conflicts in several other African countries newly uprooted 400,000 other Africans during 2003.

In Uganda, an armed rebel group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) repeatedly attacked refugee camps and sites for internally displaced Ugandans, raping, abducting, and killing innocent civilians. Intensified and sustained LRA attacks—primarily in northern Uganda during mid-2003—uprooted some 600,000 Ugandans, pushing the total number of internally displaced Ugandans to over 1.4 million by year’s end.

In Central African Republic (CAR), a successful coup launched in mid-March by armed supporters of former army chief of staff General Francois Bozize ousted President Ange-Félix Patasse. The violence forced more than 40,000 mainly northern CAR residents into southern Chad, where UNHCR constructed three camps to accommodate the new arrivals.

In Ethiopia, increased ethnic tensions erupted into violence for the second consecutive year in and around camps hosting Sudanese refugees. In mid-December, eight people, including three officials of the Ethiopian government’s Administration for Refugee and Returnee Affairs, were murdered when their vehicle was ambushed in western Ethiopia’s Gambella region. Reprisal attacks forced several thousand ethnic Anuak Sudanese refugees and ethnic Anuak Ethiopians, who were blamed for the murders, into Sudan. Violence in western Ethiopia has killed at least 100 Sudanese refugees during the past two years.

Refugee Repatriation Approximately 300 thousand African refugees repatriated during the year.

In Angola, refugees long displaced from 27 years of civil war, which abruptly ended in early 2002, repatriated steadily during 2003. Some 100,000 Angolans returned to their war-devastated homeland—primarily from Zambia and Congo-Kinshasa—from June to November 2003. The presence of hundreds of thousands of landmines and the lack of government-provided basic social services, including potable sources of drinking water, primary schools, and health clinics, prevented more refugees from repatriating.

In Rwanda, some 22 thousand refugees returned home during 2003. Most Rwandan refugees had fled to neighboring countries after Hutu extremists launched a genocide against the Tutsi population in 1994. UNHCR and refugee advocacy agencies, including the U.S. Committee for Refugees, expressed concern during the year that while Rwanda is regarded as safe, repatriation must be voluntary. Several hundred Rwandans fearing involuntary repatriation attempted to enter Uganda from Tanzania, but were refused entry. Some may have been associated with the 1994 Rwanda genocide. In late 2003, the Rwandan government and UNHCR signed Tripartite Agreements with several African countries, providing for registration, distribution of repatriation assistance packages, and customs and entry arrangements for the voluntary repatriation of some 45 thousand Rwandans who remained refugees at the end of 2003.

In Sierra Leone, two years after the conclusion of more than a decade of brutal civil war, some 35,000 Sierra Leonean refugees repatriated from neighboring West African countries.

The ebb and flow of refugees and internally displaced persons in Africa during 2003 did not significantly affect the total number of uprooted Africans. At year’s end, Sudan, Congo-Kinshasa, Angola, Burundi, and Somalia were the largest sources of uprooted people in Africa, as they were in 2002, accounting for more than 75 percent of all uprooted Africans. Tanzania, Sudan, Congo-Kinshasa, Zambia, and Uganda were the leading refugee hosts at the end of 2003.