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Eritrean and Ethiopian Urban Refugees in Khartoum: What the Eye Refuses to See

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Gaim Kibreab
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A decade and a half ago Chambers (1979) referred to African rural refugees as “What the Eye Does not See.” This was, inter alia, due to the remoteness of their inhabited areas and the urban bias which then characterized the responses of the international assistance regime. If rural refugees were, in the 1970s, “what the eye did not see,” today refugees in many of the African urban centers are what the eye “refuses to see.” One of the most dramatic and far-reaching impacts of war, drought and economic hardship in the 1980s in many sub-Saharan African countries has been the immense population shift from rural areas to the cities. This population shift is taking place in the absence of any structural transformation in the economies concerned. Structural transformation here refers to increases in labor productivity, a declining share of agriculture in total output, technological progress and industrialization. African host-governments see the situation in their urban centers being exacerbated by the presence of refugees who are said to compete with nationals for scarce employment opportunities and social services such as health, education, housing, water and transportation. In many African host countries where the public sector is the main employer, refugees are excluded from employment in this sector; in other countries such as Egypt and Djibouti, refugees are not allowed to take any paid employment (Wallace 1985). The policies of many African governments toward skilled urban refugees are succinctly described by Brydon and Gould (1984,4):

[E]xperience has shown that skilled refugees face particular difficulties for employment and assimilation into the host society. Employment policies in most African countries have been vigorously nationalistic…and particularly for skilled workers.

Type
Articles
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , December 1996 , pp. 131 - 178
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1996

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