A History of Asylum in Africa

Abstract

Migration has been a significant feature of African history for centuries. Forced migration in Africa can be traced back to antiquity, and was a central feature of the consolidation of the Bafour, Ghana, Benin and Lunda empires (Khapoya, 1994). Intercommunal conflict, especially resulting from the mfecane in Southern Africa, shifting cultivation and the slave trade also resulted in significant migration both from and within Africa (Zolberg et al., 1989, 290). Colonial policies of forced recruitment and the settler agricultural system also resulted in forced migration. The emergence of the modern refugee phenomenon in Africa may, however, be linked to the anti-colonial struggle and the independence of most African states in the late 1950s and early 1960s for two reasons. First, as argued by Holborn (1975, 825), ‘the process of decolonisation brought new and powerful political forces into play and released forces which had been checked or suppressed during the colonial period’, resulting in a dramatic increase in the number of refugees in Africa. Second, this increase in the number of refugees occurred in the context of newly independent states, internationally recognized borders and changing relations with the international system. The confluence of these factors not only raised legal questions, but also important political questions.KeywordsRefugee CampGreat Lake RegionAfrican StateHost StateRefugee PopulationThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.