De-mining must begin before returnees can be safe
A million refugees stretch UNHCR resources while donor funding declines

The eventual return of nearly 600,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) to their ancestral lands is Azerbaijan’s enduring national hope. But because the peace process continues to languish, only a few in the government and international agencies have looked at the issues involved in a systematic way.

One man who has, however, is the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Representative to Azerbaijan, Didier Laye. "One of the first issues that will have to be looked at," Laye says, "is de-mining."

"So far as anyone knows," he continues, "there are no maps of where these mines were laid. And even if there were, it is uncertain how useful they would be – in nine years’ time the ground has shifted, and there have been some heavy rains which cause further movement.

"There are also many unexploded shells and other devices. No one knows where these are. In effect, the land has been spoiled.

"So, it would seem above all that once the return of people begins, it must be an organized, orderly return.

"But how will you prevent 600,000 people who have been living in tent camps, and worse, for nine years, from flooding back in a spontaneous return? These are peasants and shepherds, independent mountain people. They are not easily restrained. How will you get them to listen if you tell them not everybody can go back all at once?

"Secondly," he continues, "we have little knowledge of conditions in those areas. Where is there water? What shape are the roads in? We do know that all the cities were leveled, and all the construction materials looted. So, do you rebuild the cities? And if so, at what cost?"

While diplomats and government authorities alike ponder such pressing issues, UNHCR continues its work to improve IDP living conditions, all with drastically declining donor funding.

"In 1996, 16 countries supported UNHCR and were interested in what we do. Today, there are four or five," Laye grimly relates. In Azerbaijan, he says, UNHCR receives an average of only $5 million annually.

It wasn’t always so bleak, certainly not in 1992 when war came to Azerbaijan. In February of that year, tens of thousands of people fled for their lives from the Azerbaijan highlands. These people were forcibly expelled from their homes in the mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabagh by Armenian combat troops.

This Armenian aggression was to continue into 1994 in the seven surrounding provinces, altogether generating close to a million refugees and internally displaced persons.

In response to urgent requests from the fledgling government of Azerbaijan, the UN Secretary General and the OECD, UNHCR opened its Azerbaijan branch in December 1992.

The agency immediately set up camps and began its emergency operations. It erected huge tent villages in dozens of low-lying areas of Azerbaijan. UNHCR found itself having to innovate to meet even the basic needs of the huge influx.

"We met our objectives," says Laye. "But assistance is never commensurate with needs. The displaced population was so large we had to go with multiple partners - the World Bank, various development agencies and donor countries, the US Agency for International Development and European assistance agencies."

UNHCR continued its emergency operations phase from early 1993 through to the de facto cease-fire that was agreed in May 1994, and into 1995.

By 1996, UNHCR knew that it could not count on emergency assistance donor funding for a prolonged period. The agency had to decide whether to continue its emergency relief approach, or opt for something else. UNHCR encouraged the Azerbaijan government to move to a sustainable approach, which would shift the focus from emergency care to income generation and formulate community "ownership" of essential services such as medicine and education.

From the beginning, some determined IDPs had tried returning to their lands as control of front-line areas ebbed and flowed. With the cease-fire in place, UNHCR worked with the government and other international agencies to develop an ambitious plan to facilitate safe returns to accessible areas.

About 60,000 people returned to theses areas from 1994 to 1996. This reduced the number of IDPs from about 620,000 to 577,000, according to UNHCR figures.

"Of those 577,000," Laye says, "about one-third live in decent conditions, about one-third in poor conditions, and about one-third live in conditions beyond any acceptable for humans. There are still about 60,000 living in some 40 camps. The last one-third is dispersed all over the country, and the conditions they live in are worse than in the camps."

If asked whether the government could have done more, Laye becomes animated. "I absolutely contest the idea that the government could have absorbed the IDP population. There is still no real access to jobs in the country for anyone. In fact in March 1999 the government tried to help refugees find jobs. But it was much more difficult than anyone had imagined. We had to suggest to the government to be less interventionist."

Today, UNHCR is in a "consolidation phase" as international donor contributions to the agency continue to decline. The agency still builds some houses at a cost of about $2,200 each, and still focuses its programs on the "poorest of the poor," and on those who don’t have the physical capacity to help themselves.