African Refugees is a comprehensive overview of the context, causes, and consequences of refugee lives, discussing issues, policies, and solutions for African refugees around the world. It covers overarching topics such as human rights, policy frameworks, refugee protection, and durable solutions, as well as less-studied topics such as refugee youths, refugee camps, LGBTQ refugees, urban refugees, and refugee women. It also takes on rare but emergent topics such as citizenship and the creativity of African refugees. Toyin Falola and Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso showcase the voices and experiences of individual refugees through the sweep of history to tell the African refugee story from the historical past through current developments, covering the full range of experience from the causes of flight to living in exile, all while maintaining a persistent focus on the complicated search for solutions. African Refugees recognizes African agency and contributions in pursuit of solutions for African refugees over time but avoids the pitfalls of the colonial gaze—where refugees are perpetually pathologized and Africa is always the sole cause of its own problems—seeking to complicate these narratives by recognizing African refugee issues within exploitative global, colonial, and neo-colonial systems of power.

Of the world's refugees, more than a third live in Africa, displaced from their homelands by war, poverty, famine and political persecution. In this book, contributors explore key issues related to these refugee populations. The first section looks at the legal framework for defining and assisting refugees, and the second deals with the issue of relief by considering specific cases, the general problems faced and particular relief efforts. Subsequent chapters examine forced migration, resettlement and repatriation, conflict with local populations, integration of refugees, and sustainable development.

This book discusses the phenomena of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDP) across several African countries. There are 40 million IDP worldwide; of these, an estimated 12.6 million are in 37 of Africa’s 55 countries. Written by a team of fifteen scholars across four continents, this book uses both quantitative and qualitative data to analyze the causes and consequences of this displacement, the role of the state in creating and mitigating these situations, and potential policy solutions. The volume is divided into three sections. Chapters in Section 1 discuss the causes of displacement. Chapters in Section 2 discuss refugees in their regional context. Chapters in Section 3 discuss IDP camps in Kenya, Nigeria, and Ghana. Bringing scholarly analysis to address two humanitarian crises, this book will be useful to students and researchers interested in African politics, forced migration, and policy as well as members of the diplomatic corps, governmental, and non-governmental organizations actively working towards solving these challenges.

How do African states respond to the mass arrival and prolonged presence of refugees? This book answers this question by drawing on recent case studies and examining the politics behind refugee policy in Africa. The implications of this approach are important not only for the study of asylum in Africa, but also for the future of refugee protection.