| Dam-Flooded Communities in Sudan Appeal for Humanitarian Assistance LOHAP (London) |
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July 31, 2008 Some 600 families have reportedly been flooded out of their homes.... ...waters began rising around the island of Atram in the Manasir District without warning. Inhabitants had to move to improvised shelter on higher ground. Promised local resettlement areas are not ready to receive the refugees, nor have affected citizens received compensation. The communities say they have been abandoned by the government's Dam Implementation Unit, and appeal to the international community for urgent humanitarian assistance.According to some observers, dam management has repeatedly called for "hijrat al-far" or "migration like the rats" ? in other words, submerging villages to force out those who have not consented to leave. The Manasir people ? the primary victims of the flooding ? say they are refuse to be moved to harsh desert lands away from the river. They have overwhelmingly chosen to be resettled onto their own lands around the reservoir. The government appeared to agree to this in 2006, but since then, according to Manasir leaders, has tried to force the people onto more distant lands that the communities feel will be less fertile. A statement by the Manasir Executive Committee, reproduced below, released July 31, states: "An acute dispute occurred between the Manasir and the Dam Implementation Unit when the latter denied the Manasir their right to be resettled on their lands around the lake, and insisted on executing a plan to evacuate them all from their lands around the lake to desert locations in order to appropriate their lands for undisclosed purposes." The US$1.8 million dam is being built by China's CCMD consortium with the assistance of European companies Lahmeyer (Germany) and Alstom (France). It is the largest such project on the Nile since the Aswan high dam was built in Egypt in the 1960s. Information out of the area remains difficult to confirm. The United Nations Mission in Sudan/Human Rights has been denied access to the area for the past two years. Journalists and independent observers are frequently prevented from travelling to the dam region, and the community leaders have reported that they were prevented from publishing their appeal for assistance in Sudanese newspapers. For the past year, the communities have been putting in place an emergency plan in anticipation that the dam authorities might try to flood them out of their homes. Some sites have been prepared and those forced out of their homes are being provided with temporary shelter, food provisions, and fodder for their animals so long as supplies last. However, the Manasir are calling for solidarity from the international community, both through donations to buy medicines and food locally and through publicity for their plight. ***For further details please contact: Ali Askouri, LOHAP, +44 794 66 00 238. |
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| Last Updated ( Monday, 12 April 2010 ) |
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| The Economics of Involuntary Resettlement: International Conference in India |
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An important International Conference on Population Displacement and Resettlement by development projects will take place on April 10-12, 2012 at the Xavier Institute of Management in Bhubaneswar (XIMB), Odisha, India. The conference is jointly organized by the Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar, the XLRI School of Business and Human Resources, Jamshedpur, and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. XIMB, the lead organizing institution and the conference’s host, is one of India’s most eminent high education institutions in the area of management sciences. Private sector industries and the public sector recruit many managers and civil servants from among XIMB graduates. The Conference is prepared by a group of XIMB faculty, led by Professor Latha Ravindran, who was the first to introduce a training course on development-caused population resettlement in XIMB, one of few Universities in India that offer graduate training in this domain. The Conference seeks to examine the theoretical, legal, financial and policy issues intrinsic to development-caused displacement. Its Keynote Address will be given by Professor Michael M. Cernea, NR Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Washington DC, and former Senior Adviser of the World Bank on Social Policies and Sociology. Among participants are both Indian and international scholars, researchers, students, and practitioners. The risks and actual adverse impacts of development-induced resettlement on local people have been widely researched, but the capacity to deal with these issues is still largely lacking. Though there have been recent trends in training programs and university courses focusing on these issues, the need for effective and knowledgeable experts to assist in the resettlement process more crucial now than ever. The conference will be an opportunity for researchers, project proponents, managers of R&R projects, professionals from civil society organizations and policy makers to deliberate, debate and identify possible solutions for critical unsolved issues pertaining to involuntary displacement, resettlement and rehabilitation on account of development projects. Towards this goal, the organizers selected the following main topics for the sessions of the conference on Theoretical Perspectives, Legal & Policy Issues on Development-Induced Displacement and Rehabilitation, 2. Critical issues in Land Acquisition and Forced Displacement,3. The Economics, Financing, and Planning for R&R,4. Management of Impoverishment Risks under Urban Displacement Odisha is one of India’s richest states in underground resources (iron, coal, rare metals etc.), but also one of its least developed, and has a high percentage of tribal groups amongst its population. Many big private sector corporations, national and transnational, are currently developing large scale projects in Odisha in the extractive and processing industries in order to bring these resources into the industrial and economic circuit. Such developments, however, entail the need of large aggregate population displacements and relocations. This has vastly increased the interest of the State Government and population in the issues of Development-caused Forced Displacement and Resettlement (DFDR). Odisha is one of India's states which has adopted its own State Policy for DFDR processes. Researchers from India and abroad interested in attending this Conference may contact: Ms. Reena Ravichander Xavier Institute of Management, Xavier Square, Bhubaneswar-751013, Odisha, India Phone: +91-674-3983811 (D), 3012345 (30 lines); Mobile: +91-9437010686 Fax: +91-674- 2300995; Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Submitted by Joanna London |
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