Emergency Response

Refugees from Darfur, Sudan. (USAID photo/C. Reintsma)

Over the past half-century and more, Sub-Saharan Africa has suffered terribly from natural disasters, civil unrest and other causes.

Natural disasters: Examples include the Sahelian West Africa drought of 1968-1974; the Africa‑wide drought of 1984-1986; the Southern Africa drought of 1991-1993; the Southern Africa floods, early 2000; drought and locust invasions in Niger and other West African nations, 2005; periodic cyclones in Madagascar; and since 2002, food crises in West, East and Southern Africa.

Civil wars and other unrest: Examples include the Ogaden border war (Ethiopia and Somalia), early 1980s; apartheid South Africa-backed destabilization of the Southern African region, 1970s and 1980s; the Angola civil war; the Liberia civil war; the Sierra Leone civil war; genocide in Rwanda and Burundi; genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan; and recent unrest in Kenya.

Today, periodic droughts continue to devastate parts of Africa, resulting in food shortages and full-scale food crises as well as worsening health problems, environmental destruction and poverty. On a positive note, most of Africa's longest civil wars have come to an end. However, the continent still has about 2.5 million refugees (in descending order, the majority are from Sudan, DR Congo, Somalia, Burundi, Eritrea, Angola and Liberia) and large numbers of internally displaced persons (in descending order, the majority are within Sudan, Somalia, Cote d'Ivoire, DR Congo and Uganda). Recently, between 1.1 million and 3 million Zimbabweans, most of whom are not officially designated as refugees, have fled their country to South Africa, Botswana and Zambia, as a result of economic hardships.

 

Statistics: 2007 World Refugee Survey, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, and Refugees International Bulletin (Nov. 7, 2007).

 

(Updated, Dec. 17, 2007)