Do Refugee Camps Offer a Refuge From Conflict? A Spatially Explicit Analysis of Conflict Incidence at 1,543 Refugee Camps Across Africa (1997–2020)

Abstract

By the end of 2020, 20.7 million refugees worldwide were under the protection of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Despite the intended role of refugee camps as sanctuaries for people fleeing conflict and persecution, recent empirical research has shown that many refugees continue to experience conflict even after settling in camps. Measuring refugee exposure to conflict, especially recurrent conflict, is important for the design and evaluation of refugee settlement and asylum policies, refugee-host relationships, as well as refugee security and protection. However, existing research is either nationally aggregated or highly localized at a small number of refugee camps and does not consider changes in conflict incidence following refugee arrivals, leaving uncertainty around near-camp conflict dynamics across refugee hosting countries. To address these gaps, we measured conflict event proximity, frequency, and trends around refugee and non-refugee settlements in all refugee-hosting countries in Africa over a 24-year period (1997–2020). We used georeferenced data on 1,543 refugee camps from UNHCR and conflict event data from the Armed Conflict Location Event Database (ACLED), and compared localized conflict incidence at refugee camps to 4,003 non-refugee settlements from the Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project (GRUMP). Our results show that 52% of all refugee camps and 94% of urban refugee camps were within 10 km of at least one armed conflict event after camp establishment. Conversely, only 82% of urban settlements without refugee camps were within 10 km of a conflict event, suggesting that urban refugee camps are subject to nearby conflict at a disproportionately higher rate compared to both rural refugee camps and non-refugee settlements. We also find that conflict events moved an average of 11.2 km closer to refugee camps after camp establishment, indicating a general encroachment of conflict upon camps. Such persistent and widespread conflict challenges the security of camps and the protections afforded to refugees, and merits increased attention from host countries and humanitarian actors.

Indexing climatic and environmental exposure of refugee camps with a case study in East Africa

“…While identifying potential reasons for differences in camp exposure over time are outside the scope of this study, it is worth noting this distinction given the evolution of camp planning by UNHCR and other actors in the humanitarian space 34 , 45 in recent decades. Shifts in the geography of conflict and unrest over time have also driven displacements into new border regions, with varying responses from host communities/governments pushing refugee camps into further marginal borderlands 20 . The data also indicates a rise in the variability in exposure of camps settled since 2010 with many of the lowest and highest exposure camps having been settled in the last decade.…”

“…Refugees are commonly settled in environmentally marginal borderlands 16 , excluded from socioeconomic opportunities and livelihoods 17 , and may remain encamped for generations 18 . While refugees are one of the most studied at-risk populations from a social vulnerability perspective 18 – 20 , refugee camps have only been comprehensively studied in terms of climate vulnerability and environmental change studies in a few cases. For example, the rapid and widespread landscape changes (e.g., deforestation, terracing) and related hazards (e.g., landslides, flooding) in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, home to the world's largest refugee population of one million Rohingya has received extensive attention 21 – 23 .…”