26 June 2008 Senegal: IDPs remain vulnerable as obstacles to return and reintegration persist Although confusion still reigns over the number of people internally displaced in Senegal’s Casamance region, ranging anywhere between 10,000 and 70,000 people, continuous return movements have been reported. These have mostly been spontaneous and unassisted. Better security cooperation between Senegal and Guinea-Bissau, coupled with the peace agreement signed in December 2004 between the Senegalese government and the separatist Mouvement des Forces Démocratiques de Casamance (MFD C), has encouraged these returns, but inse- curity persists. Armed clashes between factions of the MFDC, in Bignona department near the border with Gambia, highlight the weaknesses of the peace process. Rebel attacks against ci- vilians returning to districts further south, along the southern border of Casamance with Guinea-Bissau, were also reported in the first few months of 2008. Temporary movements of people to safe areas nearby following violent attacks are a common pattern. As the vast majority of IDPs in Casamance seek refuge with family, friends and host communities, they are often unable to ensure livelihood opportunities for themselves and their families. In areas of displacement, the food security of IDPs has been particularly affected by rising food prices and limited access to farming land. Many commute to home areas as far as the intermittent violence and landmines permit, in order to tend to their crops. Social and psychosocial problems are also prevalent among IDPs. In other areas where IDPs have returned, the legacy of the long conflict has continued to hamper their sustainable reintegration. Infrastructure and services remain limited, and the presence of mines has prevented them from farming again. The government, with the support of local and international partners, has launched a series of recovery and reconstruction pro- grammes in the region. Much, however, still needs to be done to extend humanitarian mine- clearance operations and address land-related grievances. The consolidation of a sustainable peace will depend on the capacity and willingness of the government and the MFDC to abide by their commitments. Recovery and reintegration efforts, however, should not depend on po- litical successes. www.internal-displacement.org Internal Displacement in Senegal More maps are available on http://www.internal-displacement.org/ 2 Senegal: IDPs remain vulnerable as obstacles 26 June 2008 to return and reintegration persist Background and causes their homes as a result of MFDC incur- of displacement sions and the government’s counter- insurgency operations. Access to land Senegal’s southern Casamance region, became more difficult as rebels began bordered to the north by Gambia and to planting anti-personnel mines along the the south by Guinea-Bissau, has been the border with Guinea-Bissau in 1997 to scene of protracted low-intensity conflict, protect their bases. From 2001 to 2003, which has continued since 1982 despite sporadic but violent clashes between the various peace agreements. A disputed army and the MFDC continued to cause land rights reform, cultural discrimina- short- and longer-term displacement. tion and limited employment opportuni- ties in the 1960s and 1970s led to the Although clashes between the MFDC and renewed formation of the Movement of the Senegalese army have decreased in Democratic Forces in the Casamance number and intensity in recent years, in- (Mouvement des Forces Démocratiques ter-factional fighting within the MFDC de la Casamance, or MFDC) as a separa- has increased (P. Chang, March 2008). tist movement. The government’s clamp- The main historical division has been be- down on mass protests in the town of tween the Northern Front (Front Nord) Ziguinchor in December 1982 and De- and the Southern Front (Front Sud), cember 1983 led to an open insurgency, named after their original areas of opera- and as channels for peaceful protest were tion north and south of the Casamance closed off, the MFDC established an River. Numerous subdivisions within armed wing, Atika (P. Chang, March these two groups have also hindered at- 2008). Violent demonstrations continued tempts at peace (USAID, 1 June 2006). throughout the 1980s and Atika started Plagued by factionalism and a lack of organising attacks on both military and political strategy, the MFDC has failed to civilian targets in the region in 1990, thus unite the people of Casamance behind it initiating the “military phase” of the con- (CODESRIA, 2004) and it has moved flict (A. Manley, November 1998). The from attacks on military targets to vio- consequent large-scale army deployment lence with an impact on those same peo- fostered a cycle of sporadic violence and ple, for example by restricting access to human rights abuses by both sides. The farming land and undertaking armed rob- region became increasingly unsafe and beries (Chatham House, December isolated from the rest of the country. 2004). Although the MFDC has a strong ethnic Taking advantage of favourable regional Diola component, researchers have pre- and international circumstances, presi- ferred to interpret the conflict as a result dent Abdoulaye Wade has changed the of social and geographical marginalisa- government approach to the Casamance tion (CODESRIA, 2004). The conflict conflict (V. Foucher, October 2003). was initially confined to Ziguinchor re- Since his election in 2000, Wade has gion and it only spread into western parts tried to negotiate more or less directly of Kolda region from 1995. By the mid- with the armed elements of the MFDC, 1990s, inhabitants of large areas along sidelining to some extent the separatist the border with Guinea-Bissau had fled political wing, and the peace process has 3 Senegal: IDPs remain vulnerable as obstacles 26 June 2008 to return and reintegration persist made significant progress. On 30 De- serted since 1988, representing a total of cember 2004, the government and the around 100,000 people displaced within MFDC signed a peace agreement which and outside Senegal (WFP, June 2007). A provided for the parties “…once and for further 10,000 people were reportedly dis- all to give up armed struggle and the use placed because of fighting between the of violence” (AFP, 30 December 2004). army and the MFDC in October 2006 However, a faction of the Southern Front (IRIN, 16 October 2006). Citing similar of the MFDC rejected the agreement, and numbers, the US Department of State re- occasional armed skirmishes, violent at- ported that approximately 60,000 re- tacks and political killings continued mained internally displaced in the country (VOA, 14 May 2007; IRIN, 5 December at the end of 2007 (USDoS, 11 March 2006). In December 2007, with the re- 2008), while OCHA’s Regional Office for gion in a state of “neither war nor peace” West Africa suggests that from 40,000 to (IRIN, 27 December 2007), the presi- 70,000 IDPs remained (UN OCHA by dent’s envoy to Casamance was killed, email, 21 April 2008). the last of three political assassinations between 2006 and 2007, provoking fears However, according to primary data col- of a setback in the peace process (AFP, lected by the German Technical Coopera- 21 December 2007). Violent attacks tion (ProCas-GTZ), around 70 per cent of against civilians and armed clashes be- some 35,000 IDPs had returned as of tween the MFDC and the Senegalese March 2007 to Diouloulou, Fogny, Ous- army have continued in the first months souye, Nyassia, Goudomp, Tanaff and of 2008. Dioulacolon, leaving some 10,000 people still internally displaced from those areas Varying IDP numbers reported (ProCas-GTZ by email, 28 April 2008). Similarly, the Association pour la Promo- Given the complexities inherent in the tion Rurale de l’Arrondissement de patterns of displacement in Casamance, Nyassia (APRAN) estimated that some reliable statistics on the number of inter- 26,000 IDPs had returned in Ziguinchor, nally displaced people have always been Bignona, Kolda and Oussouye depart- scarce. The overall number of people in- ments as of December 2007. ternally displaced varies according to the source. Most current estimates range be- Implementation of a government survey tween 10,000 and 70,000. to shed light on the numbers and situation of IDPs in Casamance is awaiting fund- According to a 2003 World Food Pro- ing. The National Agency of Statistics gramme study, there were in total 64,000 and Demography will initially study the internally displaced people in Senegal; two districts of Niaguis and Nyassia in 47,000 were in Ziguinchor region and Ziguinchor department. The survey, 17,000 in Kolda region (WFP, 27 August which could potentially be extended to 2004, p.5). Other sources cited a figure of those areas left out of the 2002 national 50,000 people who had fled their homes census for security reasons, will include since the conflict broke out in 1982 (IRIN, some socio-economic variables. However 3 January 2006). Another report estimated the study has been suffering from a lack that around 240 villages have been de- of funding and its implementation, origi- 4 Senegal: IDPs remain vulnerable as obstacles 26 June 2008 to return and reintegration persist nally planned for February 2008, has IDP clustering has tended to follow pre- been delayed. existing patterns of settlement. In the ar- eas of Alwar and Kandé, for example, Patterns of displacement IDPs tended to stay with family members who had settled in the area as land had The vast majority of displaced people in not yet been parceled when they had first Casamance seek refuge with family, arrived. Displacement movements into friends or host communities. While there the city have thus followed normal pat- are no reliable statistics available on the terns of urban migration, complicating number of host households, it is esti- the identification of IDPs in the city.