AN EVALUATION OF THE IMPACT OF REFUGEE CRISIS ON HUMAN SECURITY IN WEST AFRICA

Abstract

This chapter critically discusses the refugee crisis on the African continent from a socio-legal perspective. It commences by outlining, in accordance with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (hereinafter the UNHCR), the refugee situation in numbers and related to regions (i.e., Central Africa and Great Lakes, East and Horn of Africa, Southern Africa and West Africa) on the African continent. The numbers given refer to refugees as well as persons in refugee-like situations as of end of 2016. Secondly, this chapter provides a conceptual clarification of the concepts of ‘refugee’ and ‘asylum seeker’.

This chapter evolved from a paper presented at Pwani University College, Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy and Technical University of Munich, 1st South-East-African and European Conference on Refugees and Forced Migrants: Social Rights – Care – Mutual Benefits, Kilifi, Kenya, 2 – 3 August 2016.