About the Report

This report reviews the challenges facing returning refugees 

and internally displaced persons after protracted conflict, 

questioning the common wisdom that the solution to 

displacement is, in almost all cases, to bring those uprooted 

to their places of origin, regardless of changes in the political, 

economic, psychological, and physical landscapes. While 

affirming the right to return, the report underscores insecurity, 

lack of economic opportunities, and poor services generally 

available in areas of recent conflict where people are expected 

to rebuild their lives, documenting cases of seriously flawed 

return efforts. Greater flexibility in determining the best 

solutions to displacement and more investment in 

alternative forms of reintegration for those who 

have been displaced is needed.

About the Author

Patricia Weiss Fagen is a Jennings Randolph fellow at USIP. 

Her project analyzes forms of reintegration of war-affected 

populations, particularly returning refugees and internally 

displaced persons, contending that successful reintegration 

of the victims of conflict is an important bellwether of 

war-to-peace transitions. She has devoted years to studies 

on refugees and return, most recently as a member of the 

faculty at Georgetown University. She has also played a role 

in reintegration programs while serving as a senior official 

at UNHCR. Thanks for major assistance in the preparation of 

this report go to Manuel Fonseca Soares. Likewise, the helpful 

comments and critical readings by the Jennings Randolph 

Fellowship officers, Chantal de Jonge Oudraat and Elizabeth 

Cole, were important to its completion. 

2301 Constitution Ave., NW • Washington, DC 20037 • 202.457.1700 • fax 202.429.6063

Special Report 268 April 2011

© 2011 by the United States Institute of Peace. 

All rights reserved.

Patricia Weiss Fagen

Refugees and IDPs 

after Conflict 

Why They Do Not Go Home

Summary

•	 Programs to return refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) to their homes after 

conflict, implemented by national authorities with international support, frequently leave 

far too many without viable futures. The measures are often inadequate for three reasons: 

a widely shared but flawed assumption that the need to create a future for returnees is 

satisfied by restoring them to their prior lives; a lack of long-term engagement by implementing authorities; and a focus on rural reintegration when many refugees and IDPs are 

returning to urban areas. These arguments are illustrated in four country cases—Bosnia, 

Afghanistan, Iraq, and Burundi.

•	 In each case, the places that refugees and IDPs were forced to flee have been greatly 

reshaped. They often lack security and economic opportunities; governance is weak and 

services are inadequate. Returnees have made choices about their futures in large part on 

the basis of these factors.

•	 While reclaiming land or receiving compensation for losses is important, the challenge for 

many returnees is to settle where they can maintain sustainable livelihoods; find peaceful 

living conditions; have access to health care, education, and employment opportunities; 

and enjoy full rights of citizenship. This may mean a move from rural to urban areas and a 

change in the source of income generation that has to be accounted for in the design of 

reintegration programs.

•	 Returning refugees and IDPs should be assisted for a sufficient amount of time to determine 

which location and livelihood will suit them best. For international organizations, this may 

involve greater creativity and flexibility in supporting returnees in urban settings.

•	 To accommodate inflows of returnees and their general mobility, national and local governments should develop urban planning strategies to manage the growth of their cities, 

coupled with regional development plans in rural areas that may involve investment in 

United States Institute of Peace www.usip.org

SPECIAL REPORT

Contents

Cases 3

Findings 10

Conclusions and Recommendations 12
2

commercial agriculture. Linking rural and urban areas by strengthening government institutions can also provide returnees with more livelihood options and promote development.

Forced displacement is a tragedy for those who experience it. Whether it happens from 

natural disaster, environmental degradation, political fiat, or conflict, losing one’s home also 

means losing identity, family history, livelihood, and community. This report considers the 

challenges facing war-affected people who have lived for decades as refugees or internally 

displaced persons (IDPs) and seek reintegration into a national fabric that has changed 

vastly during their absence. The end of conflict makes it possible for refugees and IDPs to 

contemplate returning to their geographic origins or settling elsewhere, but to go where 

and to live by what means is far from established. Because of their displacement, refugees 

and IDPs can lose their basic right of citizenship and the protections that come with it. If 

hundreds of thousands—or millions—of people find themselves without durable security, 

stability, and economic self-sufficiency, it affects the long-term recovery and security of the 

nation overall. National authorities, with international support, have been implementing 

programs to repatriate refugees and return IDPs to their homes, but they leave far too many 

without viable futures. This report examines three underlying reasons why this is so.

First, there is a widely shared but flawed assumption among national and international 

authorities that creating a future for returning refugees and IDPs is satisfied by restoring 

them to their past—that is, to their places of origin and former livelihoods—even when 

conditions are not conducive for returning to these places. This assumption should be seriously questioned. People who have been displaced may not necessarily want to return to 

their homes, and international and national efforts need not be devoted overwhelmingly to 

making this possible. Refugees and IDPs, along with national authorities and international 

organizations, are devoting important resources to trying to transform former war zones 

into productive and peaceful environments where returnees can thrive. Desirable as this 

concept may appear, its flaws become quickly apparent when displacement is of long duration and physical, political, and economic landscapes have significantly changed, nationally 

and locally. 

The refugees described in these pages either did not return to their places of origin or did 

so only to find that, international benefits notwithstanding, they lacked safety, economic 

opportunities, and essential services. IDPs may continue to live as strangers and secondclass citizens even when they return to their original homes. Building on past and recent 

research conducted by numerous analysts in a number of countries, this report contends 

that the combined effects of protracted conflict and displacement all but preclude homecoming as a solution for a very large number of people and, consequently, other scenarios 

for reintegrating displaced populations must be taken more seriously. 

Second, overseeing and supporting returnees in their homes and investing in semirural 

or urban venues of integration require long-term engagement. Governments and international agencies treat large-scale displacements as humanitarian emergencies, for which 

international relief is mobilized. This is a short-term exercise: The purpose of humanitarian 

assistance is to help people survive and receive basic services until the emergency is over. 

It is now clear to all concerned that the problems of displacement due to conflict do not 

end even when a peace agreement is signed, and humanitarian assistance is not enough to 

support the durable reintegration of massive numbers of rootless individuals and families. 

When repatriations have returned refugees to their homes in rural areas, the UN High 

Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) gives food and tools (e.g., farm implements, seeds, 

basic household equipment) to the returnees; it may also rebuild infrastructure, secure 

sources of water, prepare agricultural land (e.g., plowing, removing rocks, setting up irrigation), and install income generation projects. Repatriates remain “of concern” until UNHCR 

The views expressed in this report do not necessarily 

reflect the views of the United States Institute of Peace, 

which does not advocate specific policy positions.

To request permission to photocopy or reprint materials, 

e-mail: permissions@usip.org

About the Institute

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, 

nonpartisan institution established and funded by Congress. 

Its goals are to help prevent and resolve violent conflicts, 

promote post-conflict peacebuilding, and increase conflict 

management tools, capacity, and intellectual capital worldwide. The Institute does this by empowering others with 

knowledge, skills, and resources, as well as by its direct 

involvement in conflict zones around the globe.

Board of Directors

J. Robinson West (Chair), Chairman, PFC Energy, Washington, 

D.C. • George E. Moose (Vice Chairman), Adjunct Professor 

of Practice, The George Washington University, Washington, 

D.C. • Anne H. Cahn, Former Scholar in Residence, American 

University, Washington, D.C. • Chester A. Crocker, James R. 

Schlesinger Professor of Strategic Studies, School of Foreign 

Service, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. • Kerry 

Kennedy, President, Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and 

Human Rights, Washington, D.C. • Ikram U. Khan, President, 

Quality Care Consultants, LLC., Las Vegas, NV. • Stephen D. 

Krasner, Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations at Stanford University • Jeremy A. Rabkin, Professor of 

Law, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA. • Judy Van Rest, 

Executive Vice President, International Republican Institute, 

Washington, D.C. • Nancy Zirkin, Executive Vice President, 

Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Washington, D.C. 

Members Ex Officio

Michael H. Posner, Assistant Secretary of State for 

Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor • James N. Miller, 

Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy •

Ann E. Rondeau, Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy; President, 

National Defense University • Richard H. Solomon, 

President, United States Institute of Peace (nonvoting) 
3

considers them able to lead stable and secure lives. Other donor projects target broader 

segments of war-affected groups. For such investments in humanitarian relief and early 

recovery to produce lasting effects, however, governments, with international assistance, 

must restore lost documentation, create schools and health clinics, restore communications, 

establish conflict adjudication mechanisms, and importantly, link former areas of conflict 

with national structures of governance. UNHCR and other humanitarian agencies generally 

depart before such work can begin, leaving it to national governments with few resources 

and other major priorities. Within UNHCR and among several non-governmental organizations (NGOs), it has always been difficult to determine how much preparation is needed for 

returnees to be able to rebuild livelihoods, what degree of governance and rule of law has to 

be in place, and what essential tasks must be completed before the returnees arrive.

Third, that the learning curve for repatriation and IDP solutions has been adapted 

primarily in and for rural settings is a limitation. When returnees are originally from urban 

areas, as is the case for many Iraqis and Bosnians, the aid responses must be different. 

Property restoration involves homes and apartments, people of urban origin are used to 

urban services, and professionals and artisans often have lost licenses to practice their 

professions or trades. Unfortunately, there is little international experience in this area. The 

more frequent occurrence is that refugees and IDPs have been effectively urbanized during 

their exile and are no longer well suited for rural lives. Returning to a rural area thus proves 

unsustainable, and returnees leave again to find a place in the already crowded cities, where 

they rarely receive attention outside of what is available to other urban poor. Their particular 

reintegration needs, derived from consequences of their forced displacement and losses, are 

neither recognized nor addressed, leaving them vulnerable to abuse, subject to violence, 

and feeling that they have suffered injustice. 

This report outlines the experiences of four countries of significant international concern. Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Burundi have all made progress (albeit uneven) toward 

peace but have largely failed to meet the daunting challenge of reintegrating refugees and 

IDPs satisfactorily. The four countries’ experiences illustrate how the same obstacles emerge 

repeatedly in different settings. It is hoped that a better understanding of the flaws and 

inadequacies in these countries’ efforts to reintegrate refugees and IDPs will lead to more 

realistic preparations for future return scenarios—for example, as Sudanese refugees return 

to Sudan, or if Somalis can again find their places in their homeland when the nightmare 

in Somalia abates. Return programs can and should be improved with more comprehensive, 

systematic, and long-term attention; at the same time, they can be made more flexible. 

Returnees do not necessarily surrender the right or desire to return, but they often prefer 

to postpone returning because they recognize that the institutional conditions needed to 

facilitate genuinely sustainable returns will probably be lacking for many years. When people 

postpone or reject returning to their geographic homes, it by no means indicates a failure to 

integrate. To the contrary, such choices may create valuable opportunities for war-affected 

civilians to escape poverty and discrimination, opening doors to new forms of economic, 

political, and social participation. But this will occur only if protection and assistance for 

the formerly displaced are well targeted to their actual needs.

Cases 

Bosnia

The 1992–95 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) was a consequence of the dismemberment 

of the formerly multiethnic Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the largest segment 

of which became the state of Serbia. Slovenia, relatively homogeneous and unified, easily 
4

fought for and won independence (1990–91). Croatia’s succession struggle (1991–95) was 

bitterly contested. In the previously ethnically integrated BiH Serbs, Croats, and Bosniak 

Muslims fought a devastating civil war (1992–95) that, with international intervention, 

produced an independent Bosnia. 

The conflict entailed unprecedented campaigns of ethnic cleansing, forced displacement, and bloody ethnic conflict, and the fighting in Bosnia resulted in far greater ethnic 

homogeneity in the component parts of the new entity. Approximately 100,000 people 

were killed, 1 million became refugees, and half the population was displaced.4 The conflict 

was ended by the General Framework for Peace, referred to as the Dayton Accord, which 

was internationally imposed and left the root causes of the conflict, going back centuries, 

largely unresolved. Although the accord created two ethnically defined entities, thereby 

recognizing the demographic transformation caused by the war, the primary objective was 

to reverse the ethnic cleansing that had taken place. Annex VII of the accord affirmed the 

absolute right of all affected groups to return to the places where they had previously lived 

and held property. The premise of Annex VII was that restoring BiH’s multiethnic character 

would undermine the aims of the nationalist warlords who used violence to achieve ethnic 

uniformity. In this view, reintegrating victims in their places of origin, particularly in areas 

where they would constitute a minority population, would be the single most important 

aspect of the peacebuilding process. 

Dayton also created a structure that enabled international actors to intercede in virtually every sphere covered by the accords. The Office of the High Representative (OHR) and 

UNHCR assumed joint responsibility for the promotion, management, and oversight related 

to the return policies. Nearly every donor targeted assistance to one or another aspect of the 

return process. Contrary to many previous and subsequent international operations, donors, 

peacekeepers, and international agencies remained in Bosnia for over a decade, though 

contributions to Bosnian peacebuilding operations declined after 2000 as the authority of 

Bosnian officials increased. Nevertheless, the more intense period of international involvement, between 1996 and 2000, brought in funds for infrastructure, refugee return, economic 

and structural reforms, and peacekeeping operations that, taken together, accounted for at 

least $15 billion worth of assistance.5

When the parties signed the peace agreement, 90 percent of Bosnian Serb and 95 percent 

of Bosnian Croat and Bosniak prewar populations had left their areas of origin. They had fled 

to other countries or were living as displaced persons in one of the two new entities created 

by the Dayton Accord: a multiethnic Federation of BiH and the Republika Srpska (RS). The 

leadership in the latter intended it to be monoethnic.6 Those who wished to return to their 

original homes were thwarted by the huge amount of housing that had been destroyed, the 

forced ethnically determined movements that had caused thousands of displaced persons to 

occupy the homes of other displaced persons and, not least, local hostility to any returns 

that undermined the ethnic uniformity created during the conflict. Refugees and displaced 

persons who were ethnic minorities in their places of origin had good reasons for being 

reluctant to return. The refugees living outside of BiH were largely in this category and well 

understood the risks of returning.

After the conflict, however, Bosnian refugees in neighboring countries were under pressure to return to the new Bosnian entity and most had little choice but to comply. Muslims 

who originated from what had become the RS constituted the majority of the returned 

refugees and a large portion of the IDPs. Both groups initially remained as IDPs in the Federation.7 Ultimately the efforts and investments in facilitating—in reality, obliging—return 

appeared to pay off. As internationally offered incentives for return increased, along with 

more protection and gradually diminishing local hostility, refugees and IDP returns grew in 

number. Incentives were offered not only to potential returnees, but also to local munici-
5

palities that received and accommodated them. The major boosts to minority returns came 

after 1998 when the OHR more aggressively detained local warlords for criminal activities. In 

1999, the High Representative pushed through stronger security measures and property laws 

intended to support return to minority areas. Consequently, over 90 percent of the claims 

filed for the restitution of property under these laws were addressed.8 By 2006, UNHCR and 

OHR offices affirmed that over a million people who had been displaced by conflict and ethnic cleansing could reclaim property and, theoretically, return to their original residences or 

to newly constructed buildings nearby. The international actors claimed that about half the 

returns were to minority areas—that is, undertaken by people who were reclaiming property in places where the majority population was a different ethnicity. These and related 

achievements are unquestionably a product of the substantial international investment in 

the Bosnian peace process.

How important to the peace process was the emphasis on defending the right to return? 

Here, the evidence is decidedly mixed. In no other postconflict country have resources been 

so generously channeled to facilitate the return of refugees and displaced persons to their 

homes, but even so, tens of thousands of families have found it difficult, if not impossible, 

to go home and have not done so for both political and economic reasons. When refugees 

and IDPs have returned (with the early exception of Brcko, a city in northern BiH), the 

efforts devoted to enable displaced minorities to recover their homes and reintegrate have 

not recreated the ethnic diversity of the past.9 The combined effects of dismal economic 

conditions and continuing discrimination have reinforced ethnic cohesiveness in working 

and social arrangements, access to social services and, ultimately, residential choices. 

Several communities and neighborhoods accepted incentives but remained extremely 

hostile to ethnic mixing and made life unbearable for the returnees. In both RS and the 

Federation, state institutions and access to public services have continued to reflect ethnic 

divisions. Even today, children of different ethnicities attend the same schools but often 

have separate classrooms and an ethnically biased curriculum. Minority returnees have 

reported limited access to public services, credit, and police protection. Employment is still 

less likely to be offered to people of different ethnicities. In the Federation, and particularly 

the RS, unemployment rates remain high.

In housing, within a short time a widespread pattern developed—acknowledged but not 

documented in numbers—of returnees reclaiming property, accessing the available benefits, and later renting or selling the property. Sometimes heads of households left family 

members behind in the restored home, generally in the RS, and departed to seek work in 

the Federation. Thus, the reintegration of BiH along former mixed ethnic lines did not take 

place to a meaningful degree, leaving the massive displacement incompletely solved. As of 

2008, there were 125,000 IDPs still living in camps in the Federation, and the majority of 

the ethnic minority population forced to flee was ultimately integrated in different places, 

inside or outside of Bosnia, but not in their original homes.

Given how the Dayton Accord was imposed on the warring parties and the intensity 

with which many powerful elements—especially in the Serbian leadership—resisted it, 

it is perhaps remarkable that peace in BiH has endured to this date. While nobody would 

characterize the present political or social structures as harmonious, the population is in no 

mood for conflict and the conditions for coexistence are in place. This alone lends support to 

the sustained international pressure for reintegration. Nevertheless, the outcomes in Bosnia 

show that the internationally promoted policy to return Bosnians to their places of origin 

was somewhat misguided. Even with an international presence and support for return for a 

longer period than has been typical in more recent postconflict transitions, most Bosnians 

chose not to come back to places where they were made to feel unwelcome, and when they 

did, could not find economically viable futures there. 

Several communities and 

neighborhoods accepted 

incentives but remained 

extremely hostile to ethnic 

mixing and made life 

unbearable for the returnees. 
6

Afghanistan

Since the 1980s, at least half of the Afghan population suffered from conflict and some form 

of displacement and it is estimated that one-third left the country for short or long periods 

of time.10 Armed resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and tribal conflict during 

the 1980s first uprooted the population, creating both refugees and IDPs. Approximately 6 

million people fled to internationally assisted camps along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, 

or to Iran, where they were allowed to settle and work in urban areas but received little to 

no international assistance. Some 2 million Afghan refugees returned in the early 1990s following the defeat of Soviet forces. But as Afghans were returning to the country and to their 

places of origin, fighting broke out again in the predominantly Pashtun south, as factions 

in the Northern Alliance fought each other and eventually the Taliban. Well over 200,000 

people fled their homes in the war zones, again becoming refugees or IDPs in nearby towns 

and cities. Emerging in 1994, the Taliban in the next few years gained control of Kabul and 

extended to parts of the north. Their intolerant religious and social policies drove many of 

the relatively small urban-based educated professionals to seek refuge in other countries. A 

major drought that began in the latter part of the 1990s greatly exacerbated the rural exodus.11 As the need to flee increased, Afghans wishing to cross the border found themselves 

far less welcome in Pakistan and faced almost insurmountable obstacles to entering Iran; 

only a small number were able to successfully migrate to other areas (e.g., the United States, 

Western Europe, Australia, and the Gulf States). 

The U.S. invasion of October 2001 and overthrow of the Taliban produced further displacement but far more returns. Some 1.7 million people returned to the country between 

March and September 2002 and returns reached over 5 million by 2005.12 This was likely a 

combined result of renewed hope among exiles and increasingly difficult conditions in their 

countries of first asylum, especially Iran and Pakistan. The international community and the 

media also disseminated information to encourage Afghans to return, promising economic 

assistance and investments and, after 2001, an effective legitimate government. These 

promises have been largely unfulfilled.

Afghan returnees in the early 1990s and after 2002 received short-term resettlement 

packages from UNHCR, which, along with NGOs, also mounted agricultural and community 

reconstruction projects to improve rural infrastructure and living conditions. These investments, however, were woefully short of Afghanistan’s needs, which were systemic and long 

term. Afghans, returnees and others, have faced seriously deteriorating security conditions, 

lack of housing, lack of arable land, weak infrastructure, tensions over land ownership, and 

utterly inadequate income-generating opportunities.13 New investment was, and still is, 

impeded by a lack of security and Afghanistan’s decentralized and highly corrupt political 

economy. The most profitable rural enterprise is cultivation of poppies for heroin. Massive 

flight and return has not only uprooted the population repeatedly since the 1980s, but has 

also undermined the rural economy on which most Afghans long depended. Agricultural 

infrastructure and marketing networks have been destroyed by decades of conflict. In short, 

Afghanistan’s traditionally rural lifestyle has been permanently transformed. 

Returnees who recover their rural homes maintain themselves by regularly sending family 

members elsewhere to earn income, with the result that villages are supported by refugees 

and migrants. Afghan families living in rural isolation have become mobile and dependent 

on networks of relatives and tribal contacts across the country and the world. Urban centers throughout the country—Herat, Jalalabad, Kunduz, Mazar i Sharif, and Kabul—are full 

beyond capacity as people leave rural areas to seek employment and income, much of which 

is sent back to where they came from. Kabul’s population expanded from 1.5 million to 4.5 

million between 2001 and 2008,14 with newcomers settling in makeshift camps lacking 

Afghan families living in rural 

isolation have become mobile 

and dependent on networks 

of relatives and tribal contacts 

across the country and the world.
7

sanitation, public services, and adequate shelter. Although urban projects have expanded, 

there is still too little investment, international or national, in urban infrastructure.15 Kabul 

is deemed among the most rapidly growing cities in the world,16 and the country overall is 

urbanizing; yet urban planning is all but absent.

Meanwhile, using income from refugees and migrants to sustain the rural economy in 

Afghanistan is becoming more difficult as legal opportunities for cross-border migration to 

neighboring countries are greatly reduced. Family members who wish to migrate have not 

been able to do so easily for a number of years due to growing resistance to Afghan entries. 

However, one way or another, Afghan migration persists. Presently, long-term Afghan residents of Pakistan and Iran are under severe pressure to leave (though they will resist doing 

so). Inside Afghanistan, increased fighting with the Taliban adds to rural misery. Without 

a restoration of peaceful conditions, significant investment in agriculture, and improved 

regional receptivity to Afghan migrants, even more Afghanistan’s population will concentrate in urban areas, which at present cannot absorb them.

As of 2009, UNHCR and Brookings-Bern estimated a total of 1.78 million refugees registered outside Afghanistan. Many Afghans living elsewhere—particularly in Pakistan and 

Iran—do not have refugee status.17 In 2010, the Afghan National IDP Taskforce, cochaired 

by UNHCR and the Afghanistan Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation, identified 240,000 

IDPs,18 two-thirds of whom were already displaced before the 2001 invasion.19 The longterm exiles do not necessarily have land or houses in Afghanistan to support or recover. A 

Norwegian Refugee Council survey of Afghan families still outside Afghanistan found almost 

90 percent of its respondents claiming to have no land in the country.20 Few of these informants expressed an intention to return to their original home villages. The vast majority of 

the displaced population has lived outside Afghanistan for over twenty years, and half of 

them were born in exile.21

Afghan observers increasingly cite the effects of continual migration on rural Afghan 

society. There is widespread agreement that while the Afghan government and donors 

to Afghanistan should plan for growing numbers of returnees, they will not necessarily 

be returning permanently, if at all, to their places of rural origin. Mobility has become a 

fundamental coping mechanism, and Afghans will continue to use their widespread family 

networks for economic survival and security.22 Urban centers will inevitably expand as both 

places of choice for returnees and safety valves for rural Afghan family members. Greater 

attention and support, from the government and donors, must be channeled to urban planning and shelter construction. In both rural and urban settings, more income-generation 

projects are needed. 

Iraq

Iraqis were forcibly displaced and fled their country in large numbers during the years of 

Saddam Hussein’s regime. The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 produced less displacement than initially anticipated, but the wave of ethnic violence, wanton criminality, and 

lawlessness that followed almost immediately pushed tens of thousands of Iraqis from their 

homes and communities. The present displacement and refugee crisis is far larger in scale 

than those that occurred previously and is transformative. By far the largest took place in a 

two-year period from 2006 to 2007, in the wake of reprisals related to the bombing of the 

al-Askari mosque in Samarra in February 2006. Approximately 1.55 million to 1.68 million 

people—5.5 percent of the population—were displaced during those two years. At present, 

at least 1 million Iraqis are living as refugees in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and other 

countries in the region. They are tolerated, but for the most part, are without firm legal 

status or means of livelihood.23 About one-third of the IDPs are concentrated in slums in 
8

the larger cities of Baghdad, Diyala, and Salah ad-Din.24 Among the IDPs are a number of 

refugee returnees from Syria, identified by Refugees International in 2010, who could not 

recover homes or land and found security to be too precarious in their home villages. They 

opted for the urban slums instead. 

The dramatically improved security situation over the past two years in Iraq is undeniably good news. Although the relative calm is tragically broken on almost a daily basis 

somewhere in the country, Iraqi citizens everywhere are finally able to venture out for 

activities associated with normal life. It is thus reasonable to suppose that there should 

be an increase in the number of refugees who are returning or contemplating returning to 

their homes in Iraq. However, the refugees in neighboring countries have barely responded 

to the clearly more peaceful conditions, and those who have returned—about 127,000 since 

2006, according to UNHCR data25—affirm that they were more driven by their dire living 

conditions outside the country than attracted by the potential opportunities of rebuilding 

their lives in Iraq. IDPs were returning to their original homes in larger numbers in 2007 and 

2008, but current International Organization for Migration (IOM) surveys have found smaller 

rather than larger numbers seeking return in 2009 and 2010, despite improved security.26

The obstacles and deterrents to homecoming are sometimes monumental. The IOM reported 

in 2009 that while nearly half the Iraqi IDPs expressed the wish to return to their geographic 

homes, 43 percent of the IDPs lacked access to their homes.27 These and others would not 

return for a variety of reasons.

First, while security has improved measurably if one counts incidents of assassinations, 

bombings, and other forms of armed violence toward civilians, families are still afraid to 

return to the places they were forced to leave. This fear, understandable in and of itself, 

also has a strong logical basis: The massive ethnically driven flights from locations across 

the country have created religiously homogeneous neighborhoods and towns. This forced 

homogeneity is undoubtedly a factor in present stability, and people going back to places 

where they would constitute a religious minority might well generate violent responses. Of 

course, the opposite logic may also prevail, but many are unwilling to gamble on it. Moreover, insecurity in Baghdad and other cities leads some urban families to settle in more rural 

areas despite fewer economic opportunities.28

Second, throughout the country, Iraqis encounter lack of food, water, health care, sanitation, and electricity. Conditions for the displaced are likely to be no better in their places 

of origin than in the places where they have found shelter, and access to employment and 

services in the more remote home communities tends to be worse. Employment is a first 

priority. Lacking the expectation of an improved quality of life and still concerned about 

insecurity, refugees and IDPs are not strongly motivated to rebuild their lives in the communities they have long since abandoned. Whether they return or try to build their lives 

elsewhere, the IDP populations desperately need continued humanitarian aid—food assistance in particular—that the Iraqi government has provided in painfully low amounts.29

The lack of adequate government response, according to Refugees International, has led 

sectarian groups such as the Sadrist movement to rise to the occasion and help families of 

their own persuasion with basic needs.30 This phenomenon does not bode well for minority 

returns and sectarian harmony.

Third, sorting out property claims has proven extremely difficult, even where there is 

good will and no corruption. Government instruments, one of which involves the Iraqi army, 

have been created for this purpose, but they do not operate in a uniform manner and their 

effectiveness is dubious.31 In addition to current property disputes, some claims go back to 

the Baathist period, and it will take years of judicial improvement to rule fairly on multiple 

situations in which people are occupying homes and land belonging to others and titles 

The massive ethnically driven 

flights from locations across 

the country have created 

religiously homogeneous 

neighborhoods and towns.
9

are poorly documented. Problems obtaining restitution and compensation impede property 

owners from achieving integration elsewhere.32

The international community has invested heavily in reconstruction projects and 

improvements are visible, especially in infrastructure. The international contributions that 

affect IDPs and returning refugees have been targeted primarily to build national ministries 

and assist the vulnerable. Both forms of assistance are needed, but as the U.S. Government 

Accountability Office (GAO) concludes, “Clearly defined and agreed upon strategic goals and 

intended outcomes for reintegration have not been specifically developed.”33

The newly installed government of Iraq has pledged to prioritize making it possible 

for refugees and IDPs to return and recover property or receive compensation. Verbally at 

least, the government recognizes that it is urgent to help the vast number of Iraqis living 

miserably in ad hoc arrangements, both inside and outside Iraq. Because their problems 

are widely shared throughout the country, it is hoped that resources will flow to social and 

economic improvements across the board. At the same time, the IDPs and returning refugees 

must have access to viable mechanisms for restitution and compensation for losses.

Burundi

Burundi declared independence in 1962 and joined the United Nations, but experienced 

continuing ethnic violence between the majority Hutu population and the Tutsi-dominated 

government and military. Massacres and political instability led to massive flight involving 

both ethnic groups in 1965, 1972, 1988, and 1993; the major events took place in 1972 

and during a protracted civil conflict that began in 1993. In 1972 Hutu rebels attacked 

and massacred a large number of ethnic Tutsis. The military responded with even greater 

brutality against much larger numbers of Hutus. In 1993 the first Hutu head of state was 

elected and then assassinated by the military. He was followed by another Hutu president 

who was shot down in 1994—the plane that also killed the Hutu ruler of Rwanda—greatly 

fueling ethnic violence. In 1972 and after 1993, Burundian refugees, primarily Hutus, fled 

to Tanzania and neighboring countries—some 150,000 refugees from the events of 1972 

and another 400,000 in 1993 and after. Tutsis, under siege from Hutu-led insurgent groups, 

tended to take refuge in locations near Burundian military barracks, swelling the ranks of 

the internally displaced. Internal displacements had mounted to 800,000 by 1993. Although 

the groups were by no means homogeneous, most of the refugees were Hutu and most of 

the IDPs were Tutsi. 

The Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement, signed in August 2000 after prolonged 

negotiations, resolved the conflict, but only in 2003 did a cease-fire finally end the ongoing insurgency. After the cease-fire took effect, repatriation and returns increased but 

fell off again soon afterward due to renewed fighting, land tensions, and dire economic 

conditions.34 Protocol IV of the Arusha Agreement, dealing with reconstruction and development, created a national commission for the rehabilitation of the displaced (the word 

sinistres used to refer to refugees and displaced persons). The protocol included provisions 

to restore rights and property. The combined achievement of the peace agreement and the 

creation of a national commission on land and other property in 2007 increased pressures 

from Tanzania and other refugee-receiving countries to repatriate Burundi refugees. UNHCR 

adopted innovative aid and assistance measures that featured more cash grants as opposed 

to assistance packages given in places of origin, helping to revive the return movements. 

The so-called 1972 refugees, who had been in Tanzania the longest, were the most reluctant 

to leave. The camps in Tanzania were closed in 2009 and the few remaining refugees were 

given a choice to remain. As of 2008 about 1 million Burundians displaced by the conflicts 

had yet to be reintegrated; approximately half of these were refugee returnees.35
10

All the challenges that make reintegration difficult in countries emerging from prolonged 

conflict are present in Burundi. By far the most troublesome of these, however, is to resolve 

tensions over land. Food insecurity, inability to access services, and urban bloat can all be 

related to unsatisfactory decisions affecting both landowners and those without land. That 

said, it is encouraging that ethnic hostility is less prominent in the current tensions than one 

might suppose, given that the land problem emerged as a direct outcome of the country’s 

ethnically induced civil strife.

The refugees who left in 1972 were largely small landholders who farmed the hillsides. 

Burundian law gives the state the right to expropriate land that is unused over time, and 

on this ground—contested in international law—the state sold the refugees’ land to new 

owners while the refugees were gone.36 This created two groups of legitimate owners vying 

for small plots of land. Moreover, the dual owners often were former adversaries, giving rise 

to fear of renewed armed confrontations. Sometimes the new owners were family members, 

but the conflicts were no less bitter. Recognizing the claims of both the returnees and those 

who purchased the land in their absence, the government of Burundi proposes to share 

disputed land between claimants, using the land commission for mediation. The advantage 

of this arrangement is that none of the title holders are left empty handed, but there are 

obvious disadvantages. The plots are already too small for families; the idea of unrelated 

families sharing land may prove untenable—or worse, if the families have been former 

adversaries; and there are problems associated with credit, infrastructure improvements, 

and other factors. Growing tensions are a serious concern and seen as threatening to the 

peaceful transition underway.37

The government has expressed support for establishing decentralized towns where agriculture can be combined with productivity. To this end, it created an ad hoc commission for 

return and reintegration in the Ministry of National Solidarity in 2008, with support from 

UNHCR and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).38 For the many Burundi 

returnees who do not have land titles, those for whom the sharing arrangements will not 

work, and vulnerable groups generally, the government had created so-called peace villages, 

which allowed IDP and returnee families to leave transit camps for small-scale urban settings 

where they could also farm. Years of exile and displacement had prepared Burundians to live 

in closer quarters than was their tradition, but the peace village concept was criticized as 

only a transitional solution. Responding to the criticism, the government, with international 

support, has been working on establishing integrated rural villages that would reduce land 

conflict, bring ethnicities together, and support more sustainable development. In March 

2010, the government adopted a general reintegration strategy for the people affected by 

the conflict. It is clear that the country has too little arable land to satisfy a population 

almost uniquely devoted to subsistence agriculture and that this cannot be the sole aim of 

return policies. Land tensions threaten peace arrangements in Burundi and the country’s 

stable development depends on more innovative arrangements that include local integration with villages as hubs for development. 

Findings

The same theme arises repeatedly when refugees and internally displaced persons have been 

away from their places of origin for long periods: The places they were forced to flee have 

been transformed, in security, property allocation, economic viability, governance, and services. These factors are decisive in choosing where and how returnees can be reintegrated 

and assisted.

It goes without saying that people who have been forcibly displaced by conflict usually postpone return until peaceful conditions are restored.39 The formal end of a conflict, 

The government, with 

international support, has 

been working on establishing 

integrated rural villages that 

would reduce land conflict, bring 

ethnicities together, and support 

more sustainable development. 
11

however, does not resolve all its manifestations. Armed parties may manage to keep their 

weapons even if there has been a disarmament process. The previous structures of past 

leadership that threatened those who left are still in place locally, if not nationally. Local 

violence adds to the general insecurity. The conflicts may leave behind intentionally created ethnically or religiously monolithic societies, as in Bosnia and Iraq. Thus, returning 

minorities may feel at risk, and rightly so. Security in the long run depends greatly on the 

rule of law to uphold individual rights, the ability of civilian leadership to control security 

forces—both police and military—and, the elimination of economic strangleholds held by 

local strongmen who reemerge in positions of power. In none of the cases examined in this 

report could early returnees rely on strong state institutions and professional security forces 

to protect them.

Property Recovery

Tensions over property are common to all the cases. Persons displaced by conflict associate going home with recovering what they left behind. In every instance, they lost their 

property or control over it when state authorities, commercial producers, their adversaries in 

conflict, criminals, or even family members appropriated land and home, or when land mines 

rendered their land inaccessible. In rural areas, typically, documentation of ownership either 

has never existed or has long since been lost. In Bosnia, a massive and expensive effort to 

restore property allowed tens of thousands to reclaim their homes, but having done so, they 

did not necessarily live there. Drug lords or commercial producers have consolidated and 

taken over small farms in Colombia. In Burundi, returnees equate restoration of citizenship 

with restoration of land and are angry about the obstacles preventing them from recovering 

it. The war-to-peace transitions in Burundi, as well as in Liberia and Sierra Leone, are fragile 

because land continues to be contested and adjudication mechanisms are weak. Homes and 

land are contested in almost every governate of Iraq, and resolving these disputes requires 

accounting for the massive numbers of sectarian-based relocations in the country.

In all the countries, recovering rural property is infinitely more difficult for women, who 

are less able than men both to establish ownership and manage the farming alone. Where 

women have few rights—as in Afghanistan and Iraq—they may encounter problems recovering urban properties, as well. If, after decades of displacement and migration, refugees, 

IDPs, and their families lose the land and property they once have claimed, they have little 

choice but to look for wage work.

Economically Viable Livelihoods

Forced displacement entails losses of livelihood, which, in turn, causes families to rely on 

the hospitality of relatives, remittances from family members who have become refugees 

or labor migrants, or humanitarian assistance from international and national sources. But 

these cannot be counted on as sustainable sources of income, and for IDPs and numerous 

returning refugees, the decision to return to their places of origin is tied to whether or not 

they consider it possible to survive economically over the long term. Aid agencies debate 

endlessly about how long humanitarian aid should be made available to returnees, and 

the extent to which it should be allocated to meet individual family or broader community 

needs. Persons displaced by conflict are almost invariably mobile afterward, and the usual 

assumptions about community-based assistance often do not hold. When UNHCR brings 

refugees home to their places of origin, the repatriation includes aid packages intended to 

support the returning families pending their ability to be productive. In far more cases than 

not, these packages are inadequate to open the way for sustained economic activity and 

Recovering rural property is 

infinitely more difficult for 

women, who are less able than 

men both to establish ownership 

and manage the farming alone.
12

development is postponed. More humanitarian assistance is then needed. Meanwhile, IDP 

returns are erratically supported, if at all. 

More broadly, however, the question of restoring livelihoods for returnees is linked to 

both security conditions and development strategies. The returnees need instant solutions, 

but countries recovering from conflict need years or even decades to rebuild and restore—

or create new—institutions for economic development. At best, development goals can 

be met in the decades yet to come. In the meantime, to avoid the tragic waste of human 

capital, the victims of conflict and forced displacement should have options for decent 

livelihoods, even if these are still transitional solutions pending eventual restitution and 

possible return.

Housing and Services

Among the laments most often heard from people who have been forced to leave their 

homes, is the longing to return to that home or have a similar one. Owning a residence very 

often defines stability for people who have lost what they once had, and clearly, preparations for returns must take housing into account. But the wisdom of investing in housing per 

se is widely questioned. Donor agencies have determined that often it is best not to furnish 

housing directly to returnees, outside of vulnerable groups; rather returnees should receive 

subsidies or cash grants that allow them to determine how they want to live and where. 

Social services have also assumed growing importance for refugee and IDP populations, 

as access to health and education has long-term value for their own, and their children’s, 

future. Among the reasons most often heard for refugees’ and IDPs’ rejecting the option to 

return to their places of origin is that families do not want to lose the access to education 

and health care they had as refugees and urbanized IDPs, and which many have come to 

consider as important as income generation opportunities. Returnees to remote rural villages find very limited opportunities to school their children, and while building schools, 

health clinics, and installing public works may be on their government’s future agenda, their 

lack in the present sharply deters return.

Conclusions and Recommendations

That refugees and IDPs have the right to return is still understood to mean, as it should, the 

right to return to their places of origin if they so choose. This paper contends that national 

and international programs devoted to this purpose have fallen well short of creating 

conditions for durable returns, leaving returnees to face hardships and insecurity. Restoring refugees and IDPs to past livelihoods that may no longer be viable denies them a real 

place in the new nation. Returnees may or may not wish to return to their past lifestyles, 

but above all, they need a viable future. They, like the rest of the nation, must be able to 

move forward. 

Prior to voluntary repatriation, refugees are encouraged to return for visits to determine for themselves the potential threats to their security and whether they can survive 

economically. They are not encouraged to explore alternative options for reintegration and 

economic sustainability. UNHCR and humanitarian agencies help returnee communities by 

building roads and communications, clearing the land for agriculture, and funding shortterm income-generating projects. But returnees are inadequately prepared for the long-term 

challenges they confront when humanitarian assistance ends. 

 Nations emerging from years of conflict cannot at once ensure continuing security, 

access to services and the rule of law; it will take time for infrastructure to be rebuilt and 

local institutions established. A 2009, the UNHCR mission to Burundi concluded that the 

Among the reasons most often 

heard for refugees’ and IDPs’ 

rejecting the option to return 

to their places of origin is that 

families do not want to lose 

the access to education and 

health care they had as refugees 

and urbanized IDPs.
13

recent repatriation and reintegration of returnees to their rural areas of origin had been 

“satisfactory” but “possibilities of its being durable were extremely low.” Cash, the report 

concluded, had proved to be a more efficient and flexible tool in promoting reintegration 

than food or other material assistance.40 The report also noted that the same conclusions 

had been reached in other country operations. It is unquestionably costly to achieve viable 

and durable integration for returnees and other war affected populations—in their original 

homes or elsewhere—but these costs are valid investments in a nation’s future. Such investment, for returnees, yields better and more lasting results than perpetual humanitarian 

assistance, reduces insecurity, and avoids many of the direct and indirect costs of poverty. 

With this in mind, the following recommendations are offered.

•	 Poorly educated subsistence farmers who are forced to flee often acquire broader horizons 

and new skills as a result of their experiences as refugees and IDPs. Without surrendering 

their hopes of an eventual return to their original homes, such returnees probably will 

accept alternative locations if conditions are favorable. This is more likely if they are treated 

justly and are able to receive some form of compensation for their losses. 

•	 Flexibility is essential in designing and implementing return projects. The problem thus 

far has not been inflexibility on the part of returnees so much as the ad hoc, unplanned, 

and unacceptable options offered to them, some of which are described here. As 

reflected in the U.S. GAO report on Iraq, integration efforts require both definition and 

coherent strategies.41

•	 Going home and reestablishing rights to land matters a great deal to some of the returnees 

and IDPs, but for many others, the challenge is to settle where they can maintain decent 

livelihoods, find peaceful conditions, have access to health care and education, and enjoy 

the full rights of citizenship. Understanding that more creativity and flexibility are needed, 

UNHCR programs in Cambodia, Afghanistan, Timor Leste, and Burundi allocated cash grants 

to returnees to allow them to take care of their material needs as they see fit and make 

their homes where they choose. For returnees to make informed choices, it is important 

that assistance cover them for a sufficient time to determine which of the choices will 

work best. 

•	 Among forced migrants, youth quickly adapt to and adopt urban lifestyles, for better or 

worse, but suffer extremely high levels of unemployment. Meanwhile, women endure hardships as IDPs and refugees, and frequently suffer the consequences of being unprotected. 

They have more difficulty recovering properties and engaging in some form of agriculture. 

On the positive side, women refugees and urban IDPs may have access to education, live 

less isolated lives and, in many instances, come to value themselves to a greater extent. 

To some degree in the countries reviewed here, women have adapted well to new lives 

and have been especially eager to ensure that their children are better educated and safe. 

Assistance agencies should not simply point to the multiple ways in which women have 

been victimized, but also capitalize on their resilience and invest in it.

•	 International agencies have decades of experience restoring the displaced and refugees 

to rural lives, but very little experience in either preparing appropriate projects for people 

of rural origin in urban settings or resolving problems of refugees and IDPs who originate 

from urban areas. Channeling resources to returnees so that they can establish reasonable 

urban lifestyles may prove cost effective, durable, and willingly accepted by the would-be 

beneficiaries. The presently swollen capital cities in countries recently at war have become 

places of entrenched poverty and widespread crime. If these cities continue to grow at 

their present rates and without planning, the future for the returnees settled there will be 

even more problematic.
14

•	 National planners should also consider further investment in regional development in 

the areas where the refugees and IDPs originated. This could mean more investment in 

commercial agriculture—done with great care to avoid exploitation—and rural nonfarm 

economic endeavors. It could also mean channeling resources and promoting institutional 

strengthening in small and medium size cities so that these can become poles of development, linking rural and urban development in countries emerging from conflict. In this 

scenario, returnees could make use of acquired skills, rather than resuming subsistence 

agriculture. This alternative warrants more attention.

Notes

1. When displacement is of short duration, as during a disaster or a conflict that is quickly resolved, people can and 

do return to their places of origin and a reintegration process is not required, as is the case for the Albanians 

displaced during the brief conflict in Kosovo. 

2. The themes briefly elaborated here about the political, economic, and psychological challenges of the returning 

African refugees have been covered in Tim Allen and Hubert Morsink, eds., When Refugees Go Home (Geneva: 

UNRISD, 1994). They have also been treated in chapters covering several countries in Lynellyn D. Long and 

Ellen Oxfeld, eds., Coming Home? Refugees, Migrants, and Those Who Stayed Behind (Philadelphia: University of 

Pennsylvania Press, 2004).

3. Colombia, which has more IDPs than any country in the world save Sudan, and Liberia are important cases to be 

analyzed.

4. Gearóid Ó Tuathail and John O’Loughlin, “After Ethnic Cleansing: Return Outcomes in Bosnia-Herzegovina a 

Decade beyond War,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 99, no. 5 (2009): 1047.

5. Approximately $10 billion from the United States, $1.38 billion from European states and the European Union, 

and significant contributions from other sources. See U.S. Department of State, “Background Note: Bosnia and 

Herzegovina,” http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2868.htm (accessed February 15, 2011). See also International 

Crisis Group, “Ensuring Bosnia’s Future: A New International Engagement Strategy,” Report no. 180, February 15, 

2007, 1. The paper argues against a too-rapid dismantling of the OHR.

6. Huma Haider, “Politicisation of Humanitarian Assistance: Refugee and IDP Policy in Bosnia & Herzegovina,” 

Journal of Humanitarian Assistance 2, no. 7 (2010), http://jha.ac/2010/04/26/the-politicisation-of-humanitarianassistance-refugee-and-idp-policy-in-bosnia-and-herzegovina/ (accessed February 15, 2011).

7. Muslim and other ethnic origin refugees displaced from places of origin in Republika Srpska were more numerous 

than those displaced from the Federation, and less able to reclaim their homes in the RS areas where they 

constituted an ethnic minority. See Richard Black, “Return and Reconstruction in Bosnia Herzegovina: Missing 

Link or Mistaken Priority,” SAIS Review 21, no. 2 (Summer/Fall 2001): 177–99. See also Haider, “Politicisation,” 

3–5.

8. See Haider, “Politicisation;” Patricia Weiss Fagen, “Post-Conflict Reintegration and Reconstruction: Doing It Right 

Takes a While,” in Niklaus Steiner, Mark Gibney and Gil Loescher, eds., Problems of Protection: The UNHCR, Refugees 

and Human Rights (New York: Routledge, 2003), 213–217; Ó Tuathail and O’Loughlin, “After Ethnic Cleansing”; 

P.W. Fagen, “Peace Processes and IDP Solutions,” Refugee Survey Quarterly 28, no. 1 (2009): 31–58.

9. Brcko seems to have a stronger record on this score, which may well be due to the serious pressures international 

parties have exerted to this end. More follow up is needed to assess whether returns have proved durable. 

10. Barnett R. Rubin, “The Transformation of the Afghan State,” in J Alexander Their, ed., The Future of Afghanistan 

(Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 2009), 17.

11. Peter Marsden, “Afghanistan’s Complex Forced Migration,” in N. Van Hear and C. McDowell, eds., Catching Fire: 

Containing Forced Migration in a Volatile World (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2005), 121.

12. Alpaslan Ozerdem and Abdul Hai Sofizada, “Sustainable Reintegration to Returning Refugees in Post-Taliban 

Afghanistan: Land and Related Challenges,” Conflict, Security and Development 6, no. 1 (2006): 75–100.

13. Marsden, “Forced Migration,” 115–139.

14. International Crisis Group, “Afghanistan: What Now for Refugees?” Asia Report no. 175, August 31, 2009, 8.

15. Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan, National Return, Displacement, and Reintegration Strategy for the Year 

1382, Kabul, March 2003, 11; International Crisis Group, 2009, 9; See also Marsden, “Forced Migration.”

16. Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, “Afghanistan: Armed Conflict Forces Increasing Numbers of Afghans 

to Flee their Homes.” Report, April 15, 2010, http://www.internal-displacement.org/8025708F004BE3B1/

(httpInfoFiles)/CCF9CB64DB61DDEFC1257706003FAE31/$file/Afghanistan_Overview_Apr10.pdf (accessed 

February 15, 2001).

17. UNHCR, Afghanistan IDP Populations Statistical Analysis (Kabul and Geneva: UNHCR, 2010).

18. Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, “Afghanistan,” 4.

19. UNHCR, Afghanistan IDP Populations.

20. International Crisis Group, “What Now for Refugees?” 7.

21. UNHCR, Global Appeal 2008–2009, 1.

22. Katy Long, Home Alone? A Review of the Relationship between Repatriation, Mobility, and Durable Solutions for 

Refugees, PDES/2010/02 (Geneva: UNHCR, 2010), 31–35. 

23. Estimates of IDPs and refugees are taken from the regularly issued reports of the IOM, IDMC, and UNHCR, which 

are cited generally in most of the other sources. See the websites of the IDMC (www.internal-displacement.org), 

IOM (www.iom.int), and UNHCR (www.unhcr.org/statistics). IDMC estimates 1,630 displaced prior to 2005.

24. International Organization for Migration—Iraq Mission, Review of Displacement and Return in Iraq, August 2010, 

1, http://www.iomiraq.net/library/IOM_displacement_monitoring_reports/yearly_and_mid_year_reviews/2010/
15

IOM.20Iraq.20-.20Review.20of.20Displacement.20and.20Return.20in.20Iraq,.20August.202010.pdf (accessed 

February 15, 2011); Refugees International, “Iraq: Humanitarian Needs Persist,” March 17, 2010, 1, quotes 

UNHCR figures at 500,000 living as squatters in these three locations. 

25. The number of permanent returns is not known.

26. IOM, Review, 4.

27. See U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), Integrated International Strategy Needed to Reintegrate Iraq’s 

Internally Displaced and Returning Refugees, (Washington, DC: GAO, 2009). It reports at considerable length on 

the obstacles to return and reintegration.

28. IOM, Emergency Needs Assessments, October 1, 2009, 1.

29. In several parts of its report to Congress, the GAO underscores the absence of either a government or international 

strategy for integrating IDPs and returning refugees. It concludes that the Iraqi government support for refugees 

and IDPs is weak. See GAO, Integrated International Strategy, 24–25.

30. Refugees International, “Uprooted and Unstable: Meeting Urgent Humanitarian Needs in Iraq,” April 2008, 4–6.

31. Ibid., 15.

32. GAO, Integrated International Strategy, 14–15.

33. Ibid., 41.

34. Katherine Haver, Felicien Hatungimana, and Vicky Tenant, Money Matters: An Evaluation of the Use of Cash Grants 

in UNHCR’s Voluntary Repatriation and Reintegration Programme in Burundi, PDES/2009/02 (Geneva: UNHCR, 

2009), 4; Patricia Weiss Fagen, “Peace Processes and IDP Solutions,” Refugee Survey Quarterly 28, no. 1 (2009): 

4–5.

35. Judith Vorrath, “From Refugee Crisis to Reintegration Crisis? The Consequences of Repatriation to (Post) Transition 

Burundi,” in Stefaan Marysse, Filip Rryntjes, and Stef Vandeginste, eds., Annuare des Grands Lacs 2007–2008

(Paris: L’Harmattan, 2009), 109–127. 

36. International law prohibits dispossessing refugees of their property in their absence.

37. International Refugee Rights Initiative, Rema Ministries, and Social Science Research Council, “‘Two People Can’t 

Share the Same Pair of Shoes’: Citizenship, Land, and the Return of Refugees to Burundi,” Citizenship and Forced 

Migration in the Great Lakes Region, Working Paper no. 2, International Refugee Rights Initiative, New York, 

November 2009. 

38 The process is elaborated in Greta Zeender, “Securing the Right to Stay: Local Integration of IDPs in Burundi,” 

paper prepared for expert seminar on protracted displacement hosted by Brookings-Bern and IDMC, Geneva, 

January 19–20, 2011. 

39. There have been some exceptions, as when refugee returns are organized as part of insurgency strategies. This 

was the case when Eritrean refugees returned from Sudan during the struggle for independence from Ethiopia and 

when Salvadoran and Guatemalan refugees returned to still-contested parts of those countries during the Central 

American wars of the 1980s and 1990s.

40. Haver, Hatungimana, and Tenant, “Money Matters,” paragraphs 28 and 71.

41. GAO, Integrated International Strategy, 51.
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An online edition of this and related 

reports can be found on our Web site 

(www.usip.org), together with additional 

information on the subject.

Of Related Interest

•	 Land, Property, and the Challenge of Return for Iraq’s Displaced by Deborah Isser and Peter 

Van der Auweraert (Special Report, April 2009)

•	 The Future of Afghanistan: Stability in Afghanistan Requires Fundamental U.S. Policy Shift

edited by Alexander Their (2009)

•	 Post-Conflict Iraq: A Race for Stability, Reconstruction, and Legitimacy by Faleh A. Jabar 

(Special Report, May 2004)

•	 Unfinished Business in Afghanistan: Warlordism, Reconstruction, and Ethnic Harmony by 

Deepa Ollapally (Special Report, April 2003)

•	 Burundi on the Brink, 1993–95: A UN Special Envoy Reflects on Preventative Diplomacy by 

Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah (2000)

•	 Post-Genocidal Reconstruction: Building Peace in Rwanda and Burundi by John Prendergast 

and David Smock (Special Report, September 1999)

•	 Balkan Returns: An Overview of Refugee Returns and Minority Repatriation by Brad K. Blitz 

(Special Report, December 1999)

•	 Dayton Implementation: The Return of Refugees by Lauren Van Metre and Burcu Akan (Special Report, September 1997)