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Stronger efforts should be made to ensure that those responsible for attacks against humanitarian workers are arrested and prosecuted for such crimes
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50 Years On
What Future for Refugee Protection?
Over the past years, UNHCR has been required to work in increasingly dangerous environments. The militarization of refugee camps and the spill-over of conflicts into countries of asylum; the increasing number of internally displaced persons requiring protection in the midst of violent internal conflicts; the failure of the international community to take decisive political action to solve crises; the substitute of humanitarian action in the absence of strong political will; and the general instability and absence of rule of law in so many of the countries in which UNHCR works, have exposed its staff to unacceptable levels of insecurity with fatal consequences.
Protecting humanitarian workers Over the past years, UNHCR has been required to work in increasingly dangerous environments. The militarization of refugee camps and the spill-over of conflicts into countries of asylum; the increasing number of internally displaced persons requiring protection in the midst of violent internal conflicts; the failure of the international community to take decisive political action to solve crises; the substitute of humanitarian action in the absence of strong political will; and the general instability and absence of rule of law in so many of the countries in which UNHCR works, have exposed its staff to unacceptable levels of insecurity with fatal consequences. During the Great Lakes refugee crisis in the mid 1990's, for example, 36 UNHCR staff were killed or went missing and were presumed killed. In 1998, the head of UNHCR's northern Caucasus office, Vincent Cochetel, who was responsible for providing assistance to displaced persons in Chechnya, Ossetia, and Ingushetia, was kidnapped from his home in the town of Vladikavkaz by unidentified abductors and imprisoned for 317 days in a series of underground cellars, chained to a metal bed. In September 2000, three UNHCR staff members, Carlos Caceres, Pero Simundza, and Samson Aregahegn were brutally murdered in West Timor, the head of the UNHCR office in Macenta, Guinea, Mensah Kpognon, was murdered and another staff member, Djeya, abducted. The whereabouts of local UNHCR staff were unknown after the UNHCR office in Gueckedou, Guinea, was destroyed on December 7, 2000. Such attacks highlight once again the extreme dangers for humanitarian workers worldwide. The murders provoked a global protest and prompted UNHCR to withdraw all staff from West Timor, as well as from the border areas of Guinea. At the same time, they left refugees in these areas almost completely unprotected and unassisted with no outside witnesses to abuses. Challenges to UNHCR and to donor and host governments
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