Alarm about neglected refugee crises in Africa

When well-known conflicts dominate the headlines, other crises have a hard time. An evaluation by an aid organization shows a particularly neglected region. UN representatives are sounding the alarm.

More than 26 million people are on the run in West and Central Africa and neighboring large conflict states alone. Humanitarian organizations are sounding the alarm: the growing crises are receiving little political and media attention and far too little funding to alleviate the suffering. The majority of people are seeking protection within their own national borders, but as the situation worsens and resources become scarce, this could change if people can no longer be helped locally, said Abdouraouf Gnon Kondé, the Regional Director for West and Central Africa of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

The aid organization Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) published its annual report on Monday, in which it identified the ten refugee and displacement crises most neglected by politicians, the media and donors worldwide. With one exception, all of them are in West and Central Africa or a neighboring country. In most of the countries, according to the NRC, the humanitarian financial needs in 2023 were only covered by half at most, often significantly less. The top ten are Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Niger, Honduras, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Chad and finally Sudan.

According to UNHCR, more than two million people are internally displaced in the West African state with a population of around 23 million. Most of them find refuge in other villages and towns, which puts enormous pressure on scarce resources. According to NRC, up to two million people were also trapped in places that were under the blockade of Islamist terrorist militias. So far, the refugee crisis has largely taken place within the country, but the number of Burkinabé who fled abroad tripled to more than 148,000 people in 2023.

Burkina Faso's neighbouring countries are also being terrorised by terrorist militias. All three countries are governed by military juntas following coups. “The political challenges faced by donors or partners in some of these countries sometimes lead to humanitarian aid being suspended because of the unconstitutional nature of the regime,” says UNHCR Regional Director Kondé. “We should separate political talks and dialogue and ensure that the civilian population is not forgotten and not left alone.” In Mali, the UNHCR recently counted around 350,000 currently displaced people in the country, around 93,000 refugees from other countries and more than 800,000 Malians who need help returning. In Niger, more than 400,000 residents and more than 400,000 people from other countries are seeking refuge.

According to UNHCR, the central African coastal state has a total of more than 1.6 million people who are still fleeing the country or are trying to return home. In addition, there are almost 500,000 refugees from neighboring countries. In Cameroon, a violent conflict has been simmering for seven years between the central state dominated by French-speaking elites and separatists in the English-speaking regions in the west on the border with Nigeria. There, the country also borders Lake Chad, where a conflict fueled by climate change is raging with Islamist terrorist militias such as the Nigerian Boko Haram.

According to the UNHCR, more than 500,000 people are on the run in the country with more than five million inhabitants, while another 500,000 former displaced people need help returning. Around 70,000 refugees came from neighboring countries. The country, impoverished despite diamonds and gold, has not found peace since a rebellion in 2013, with repeated attacks by armed groups and crimes blamed on Russian mercenaries. “The chronic displacement has impaired social cohesion in communities and hampered the possibility of rebuilding the country,” warn the NRC authors.

The east of the Democratic Republic of Congo is considered one of the most dangerous regions in the world. For a quarter of a century, dozens of armed groups have been carrying out repeated attacks here. Many of them are fighting for control of strategically important natural resources such as coltan, cobalt, gold and diamonds. The conflict has recently escalated, with more than 1.6 million people having to flee the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri in one and a half years, according to the NRC. According to UNHCR, in April there were 7.2 million people displaced in the country and another million abroad. The country also hosts more than 500,000 refugees from other countries.

The outbreak of a quasi-war between the army and the powerful paramilitary in Sudan in April last year plunged the country on the eastern edge of the Sahel zone into a humanitarian catastrophe. The UN now describes Sudan as the world's largest displacement crisis. One year after the outbreak, according to UNHCR, almost nine million people were on the run, including 6.8 million in the country and 1.9 million people who had fled to neighboring countries. More than 600,000 of them have found shelter in neighboring Chad, where hundreds of thousands of Sudanese had already sought refuge, some since 2003. Chad also accommodates refugees from other neighboring countries and around 200,000 of its own internally displaced persons.