A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees. Hundreds of thousands 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 have existed for decades and some people can stay in refugee camps for decades, both of which have major implications for human rights. Some grow into permanent settlements and even merge with nearby older communities, such as Ein el-Helweh and Deir al-Balah.

Contents 1 Facilities 2 Duration 3 Exportation 4 Notable camps 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

Facilities

Facilities of a refugee camp can include the following:

• Sleeping accommodations (tents)
• Hygiene facilities (cleaning and toilets)
• Medical supplies
• Communication equipment (e.g. radio)
• Protection from bandits (e.g. barriers, checkpoints, peacekeeping troops).

Duration

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.

Exportation

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.

Notable camps

Examples of refugee camps are:

• Camps in the east of Chad, such as Breidjing Camp, hosting approximately 250,000 refugees from the Darfur region in Sudan [Starting 2002]
• Camps in the south of Chad, hosting approximately 50,000 refugees from Central African Republic
• Buduburam refugee camp, home to more than 12,000 Liberians² [Opened 1990]
• Camps for Sri Lanka Tamils, 110,000 in India in 1998, and more than 560,000 internally displaced [Starting 1983]
• Four Sahrawi refugee camps near Tindouf, Algeria [Opened circa 1976]
• Nabatieh camp [Opened 1948, Closed 1991]
• Camps on the Thai-Cambodian border between 1979 and 1993: Nong Samet, Nong Chan, Sa Kaeo, Site Two, Khao-I-Dang.

See also

• Displaced Persons camp
• Tent city
• Transitional shelter
• United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
• United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East
• Burj el-Barajneh, refugee camp in Lebanon
• Ma'abarot
• United Nations Border Relief Operation which administered camps in Thailand 1982-1993.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Refugee camps

• Camp Management Toolkit published by Norwegian Refugee Council
• Shelter Library Resource for organisations responding to the transitional settlement and shelter needs of displaced populations
• U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants' Campaign to End Refugee Warehousing in refugee camps around the world, people are confined to their settlement and denied their basic rights.
• Refuge Essay on Life in a Refugee Camp
• Thai-Cambodian Border Camps