New Emergency Transit Centre in Romania Helps Stranded Darfurian Refugees
The Romanian Government, International Organisation for Migration (IOM), and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) opened a new emergency transit centre (ETC) in Timisoara, Romania on 12 March 2009. The ETC is the first of its kind, hosting refugees in urgent need of evacuation from their countries of first asylum due to critical life-threatening conditions for a maximum period of six months while they await resettlement. The ETC functions on the basis of a tripartite agreement signed in May 2008 by Romania, UNHCR and IOM and ratified by the Romanian Parliament in November 2008. The Centre is an example of a new solution in responding to refugee needs, and is perhaps a step towards a more comprehensive global response to emergencies. Assistant High Commissioner for Refugees, Erika Feller, hailed the ETC, saying that it is “rapidly becoming not only a key protection tool for UNHCR, but also a very good precedent encouraging other countries in other parts of the world to make a similar humanitarian gesture”.
The ETC proved a saving grace for a group of 139 Darfurian refugees who fled to Iraq in 1994 and who were subsequently stranded there. They have recently been relocated to Romania and are awaiting resettlement to the United States. The group fell victim to two separate armed conflicts, first in Darfur and then in Iraq. Following persecution by armed groups in Iraq, the refugees were denied entry to Jordan where they sought asylum in May 2005. As a result, the group was unable to access any durable security or protection.
In their country of first asylum, Iraq, the camp was in the middle of the Al-Anbar Desert, an area described by U.S. Marines as “a hotbed of insurgent activity”. The Darfurian refugees were assaulted, abused and harassed by militias following the end of the Hussein regime in 2003. Armed gunmen shot and killed 17 Darfurians between December 2004 and February 2005. The conditions and circumstances of the camp in Iraq failed to meet even basic humanitarian standards. Two adults and a child died as a result of the harsh conditions in the camp, including desert sandstorms, high temperatures during the day and freezing temperatures at night. The refugees were provided with some aid in the interim by US Marines, who gave cold-weather clothing, tents, meals and bottled water to the camp’s residents, and by the Iraq-based non-governmental organisation Mercy Hands, which provided some food and health care on an ad hoc basis.
In May 2005, the group attempted to flee Iraq and enter Jordan. Abdelbagi Jibril of the African Society of International and Comparative Law (ASICL) and the Darfur Relief and Documentation Centre (DRDC) made submissions to the Foreign Minister of Jordan, asking that the Darfurians be admitted. However, Jordan, which had previously admitted a number of Darfurian refugees in 2004, ignored the requests and refused them entry. Some suspect that Khartoum exercised influence over Jordan, requesting that Jordan not cooperate with UNHCR’s appeals. As a result of the decision, the group was stranded in the K-70 camp for another three and a half years outside Al-Rutbah town, approximately 75 km east of the Jordan-Iraq border.
ASICL, DRDC and Darfur Australia Network spearheaded further advocacy efforts to assist the Darfurians. The three organisations met with UNHCR and IOM officials in Geneva, and the Darfurian refugees were finally relocated to the ETC in Romania between the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009. The group was evacuated from Iraq to Romania in waves. A group of 97 was evacuated from Iraq to Romania on 16 December 2008 and the remaining 42 on 26 January 2009. A total of 139 refugees are currently in the Centre, including 40 children. They will remain there until their applications for resettlement in the United States are processed.
The Darfurians have been put in touch with a legal aid organisation in Romania. They are being introduced to American culture via a course conducted by the American Press Centre in Russia. Those who have friends and relatives in the United States may be resettled to be close to them, and those who do not will be placed in small groups up to six persons to be sent to various regions of the US by IOM. The refugees will be assisted by American non-governmental organisations once they arrive, and after eight months the refugees will be expected to be independent.