Relatively little is known about the people who have been displaced by the Casamance conflict of Senegal. The fact that many have moved to urban areas blurs the distinction between forced displacement and migration. Policymakers should realise that coping mechanisms are being overstretched, while official aid is too often lacking.

Internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Africa have long used pre-existing rural to urban migration chains and social networks to integrate into their new homes. A paper from the University of Leicester (UK) looks at the situation of IDPs from the conflict-affected Casamance region of south-western Senegal, finding that they are increasingly under stress the longer displacement continues.

The Casamance separatist insurgency, which began in the 1980s, is West Africa’s longest-running civil conflict. Most displacement took place in the first half of the 1990s when people moved from rural areas into towns and more secure villages within Casamance. Refugees also entered Guinea-Bissau and the Gambia. Identifying and counting those displaced has been problematic. IDPs are usually self-settled, and are often difficult to find and interview because they are mixed into the wider urban population. It is estimated the Casamance conflict has created 50,000 IDPs.

Casamance has a long history of migration to urban areas, including Ziguinchor (the regional capital) and Dakar, where migrants have typically been received and supported, at least initially, by family or hometown networks. Such processes of social integration have also been used in other IDP populations in Khartoum, Monrovia and other African cities. But situations of long-term conflict and displacement, as in Casamance, raise the question of when the state of ‘displacement’ ends and whether self-settled IDPs can be considered fully integrated.

However, there are clearly important differences between voluntary migrants and IDPs:

• Whole populations have moved – children, elderly and sick people, and not just young people and those who are economically active – creating enormous strain among IDPs and the communities receiving them.
• The physical and social space of destitute IDPs, often hosted grudgingly by their relatives, is more restricted than that of voluntary migrants.
• Some IDPs manage intermittently to access productive land but landmines and armed men who have taken over their land make it too dangerous for most to return and rebuild.
• IDPs in Ziguinchor are stuck in poorly-paid, insecure semi-skilled or unskilled work, with little chance to develop new skills or open businesses: in contrast to many migrants, and even some IDPs elsewhere in urban Africa.

The author recommends that policymakers:

• understand the stresses caused by cramped conditions, disputes over money and housework and the low social status position of uninvited long-term IDP houseguests
• encourage IDPS to return home by improving security and funding de-mining
• support return, with programmes reconstructing rural homes and infrastructure and helping to re-establish rural livelihoods
• provide more assistance to poor urban IDPs, who report that the little aid they get is arbitrary, politicised or only given to those with connections
• understand the extent to which IDP work skills and expectations may have become more urbanised over the years

Source(s):
‘“The Suffering is Too Great”: Urban Internally Displaced Persons in the Casamance Conflict, Senegal’, Journal of Refugee Studies, Vol.20, No.1, by Martin Evans, 2007

Funded by: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (UK)

id21 Research Highlight: 19 December 2007

Further Information:
Martin Evans
Department of Geography
University of Leicester
University Road
Leicester LE1 7RH, UK

Tel: +44 (0)116 252 3638
Fax: +44 (0)116 252 3854
Contact the contributor: mne5@leicester.ac.uk

University of Leicester, UK

Other related links:
'Protection solutions for displaced women and children'

'Uncertain return of displaced people in southern Sudan'

'Refugees and internally displaced people – policy approaches'

id21 displacement links page

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