African Refugee Crises – Part 3- Conclusion

This is the third and final part of a piece written in February of 2019 by Teia Currimbhoy, on some of the refugee crises that were happening (and still are happening) in Africa. This part serves as the conclusion to the piece. While this is slightly outdated, the information and context are still relevant today. We hope you enjoy and learn from this!

Conclusion, Further Sources and Possible Solutions:

One of the reasons why I decided to do this research was due to my realisation of how interconnected the issues within sub-Saharan Africa are. I was responsible for the case study on Libya for 2018 Write for Rights, and when looking at the causes of the issue, I was overwhelmed by not only the weight and complexity of all the issues in sub-Saharan Africa causing the flow of refugees into Libya, but also my own curiosity as to what the causes of all those issues were. I desperately to get to the root of the problem. Africa is a tangled web of refugee crises, all affecting each other and causing huge amounts of migration around the continent, and doing this research gave me the contextual knowledge on Africa that I so wanted to know. By doing this research, I continuously affirm the fact that we cannot solve one refugee crisis without solving others.

If, let’s say, the situation in Somalia is miraculously solved and the government, economy and infrastructure as developed and stable as an MEDC, through the power of social media and the internet we would see immense flows of migration to Somalia, which would no doubt overwhelm the government and create lots of unforeseen consequences that could become a danger to Somalis and refugees both.

So, instead of focusing on solving the issues of one country within the country, we have to focus on the roots of migration and stop the flow. To stop the flow, we have to take into account each root country where little refugees migrate in but lots of people leave, and slowly work our way up. It’s like draining a river from the source.

Here’s a map of sub-saharan Africa and some refugee migration (it all leads to Libya, but it paints a good picture- click on it to enlarge) (credits to MSNBC):

I’ve already taken a look at several of the countries (including some of the ‘root’ states), and the research is above. There are so many other countries with refugee crises in Africa. I’ve only done part of the work. In all honesty, I was hoping my research would prompt you to continue your own. The map is incomplete.

But a big question still stands. So far, we’ve been speaking hypothetically. It is not possible to miraculously solve all the problems of a country. Every country has their problems. So we have to define standards for what it means for a country to be ‘stable’, and steps in order to achieve that, and then specify them to the current situations in each country.

It sure sounds like a lot of work.

But we’ll never get there if we don’t take those first steps.

Thank you for reading.

Sources:

African Refugee Crises – Part 3- Conclusion

Submit a Comment Cancel reply

Class Blogs