Repatriation: Its Role in Resolving Africa's Refugee Dilemma

Abstract

The literature on Africa's refugees has grown dramatically over the past decade. Two issues, however, remain relatively unresearched and poorly understood — the plight of urban refugees and the problems associated with repatriation. This article examines the dimensions of the latter. After placing repatriation into the context of contemporary durable solutions applied to the African refugee dilemma, the article examines some of the problems, concerns and frustrations associated with African repatriation exercises in terms of cultural, economic and political obstacles encountered in the process of repatriation and the concomitant rehabilitation of refugees in their areas of origin. The article is illustrated with examples drawn from the Southern Sudanese repatriation of the early 1970s.