A refugee camp is a temporary camp built to receive refugees. Hundreds of thousands or even millions of people may live in any one single camp. Usually they are built and run by a government, the United Nations, or international organizations, (such as the Red Cross) or NGOs
Refugee camps are generally set up in an impromptu fashion and designed to meet basic human needs for only a short time. Some refugee camps are dirty and unhygienic. If the return of refugees is prevented (often by civil war), a humanitarian crisis can result.
Some refugee camps grew into permanent settlements, such as Ein el-Helweh, and have existed for decades, which has major implications for human rights
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Facilities of a refugee camp can include the following:
People may stay in these camps, receiving emergency food and medical aid, until it is safe to return to their homes. In some cases, often after several years, other countries decide it will never be safe to return these people, and they are resettled in "third countries," away from the border they crossed.
Globally, about 17 countries (Australia, Benin, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States) regularly accept "quota refugees" from refugee camps.[1] Refugee camps are typically used to describe settlements of people who have escaped war. In recent years, most quota refugees have come from Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Liberia, Somalia, and Sudan, which have been in various wars and revolutions, and the former Yugoslavia, due to the Yugoslav wars.
Examples of refugee camps are:
When there is a war or some other armed conflict in a country, many people will try to flee (run away) from that country. They will go to other countries, around the country where there is no war. Because they fled, they are called refugees.
If there are just a few refugees coming into a country it is generally no problem to get housing for them somewhere. However, if there are many (or if the government of a country expects many) refugees, it may build what is called a refugee camp. This is usually done by putting many tents, and a few toilets and showers on an unused plot (stretch) of land. This is usually land where no one wants to live.
Usually the governments hope that conflicts get resolved soon, and that those camps are only temporary.
This has not been the case for the refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, for example. Those camps have existed since the mid 1970s.
Refugee camp in
A refugee camp in Guinea |
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