Armenia: Need to monitor progress towards durable solutions

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^{31 December 2009}

A 2004 survey found over 8,000 people still internally displaced in Armenia, almost two decades after violence and conflict with Azerbaijan had forced them to flee in the early 1990s. The conflict displaced about 65,000 people within the country, but they received hardly any government attention compared to other larger displaced groups, including refugees from Azerbaijan and people displaced by a 1988 earthquake and other disasters. International organisations have also largely neglected their plight. The low public profile and lack of registration and monitoring of these IDPs have made it difficult to estimate how many have achieved durable solutions.

There are no precise figures on the number of IDPs who have returned to their homes. Returnees mainly rebuilt houses on their own, and the quality of education and health care remains poor. Some returnees are not fully safe as landmines have not been cleared and skirmishes between Armenia and Azerbaijan continue. This continued insecurity has hindered their farming livelihoods.

Nor is up-to-date information available on IDPs who have integrated in the place of displacement or settled elsewhere in the country. There have been no major barriers to the integration of IDPs in areas outside their place of origin, but nor has the government put in place any support to facilitate it.

The government has proposed several programmes for IDPs and others in the border areas but has not allocated funds to them. In 2009, it was seeking foreign funds for its latest programme, which it had adopted in 2008.

IDPs and returnees will not achieve durable solutions until their specific needs are addressed. There is a need to support IDPs who have chosen to integrate in their place of displacement, to support non-agricultural livelihoods for returnees and adopt a national housing strategy giving special consideration to IDPs whose housing was damaged or destroyed.

Some 20 years after the beginning of Armenia’s war with Azerbaijan and related violence, information on the remaining 8,400 people internally displaced is scarce. People internally displaced by the conflict have received hardly any government attention because other larger refugee and internally displaced groups have made competing demands on the state budget in a time of economic transition and crisis. International organisations have also largely neglected their plight. The low public profile and lack of registration and monitoring of these internally displaced people (IDPs) and returnees have made it difficult to estimate how many have achieved durable solutions.

IDPs and returnees face some of the same challenges as their non-displaced neighbours, and some face additional particular hardships including the loss of or damage to property, the unavailability of property restitution or compensation mechanisms, the inability to visit former homes and the continuing insecurity in border areas. (...)

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^{23 February 2010}