Violence uprooted three million people last year

More than three million people in 15 African countries were forced to flee their homes because of war, insurgencies and
repression during 1999, according to a report launched on Tuesday by the US Committee for Refugees (USCR).

Although some newly uprooted people subsequently returned home safely, about 3.1 million Africans remain refugees and some 10.6 million are still internally displaced, according to the USCR report titled " World Refugee Survey 2000."

Described by UNHCR Senior External Liaison Officer Robyn Groves as the "single most influential publication on refugees annually", the 328 page report contains summaries of refugee-related events in 36 African countries and 90 other countries around the world.

"Events during the past year have triggered extraordinary population upheaval in Africa," senior Africa policy analyst at USCR Jeff Drumtra said. "When crises force African families to run for their lives, they have very little margin for survival."

Last year alone an estimated 800,000 people fled their homes because of political violence in Congo-Brazzaville; at least half a million people became newly displaced by a resurgence of Angola's long-running civil war; more than 400,000 were newly uprooted in both Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo; and 350,000 people fled because of the border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Violence and repression also forced large populations to flee last year in Sierra Leone, Sudan, Uganda, Somalia and five other African countries.