Refugee camp
When there is a war or some other armed conflict in a country, many people will try to flee (run away) from that country. They will go to other countries, around the country where there is no war. Because they fled, they are called refugees.
If there are just a few refugees coming into a country it is generally no problem to get housing for them somewhere. However, if there are many (or if the government of a country expects many) refugees, it may build what is called a refugee camp. This is usually done by putting many tents, and a few toilets and showers on an unused plot (stretch) of land. This is usually land where no one wants to live.
Usually the governments hope that conflicts get resolved soon, and that those camps are only temporary.
This has not been the case for the refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, for example. Those camps have existed since the mid-1970s.
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Av refugee camp in the Gaza Strip
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A refugee camp in Guinea
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A Congolese refugee camp in Rwanda
Related pages
[change | change source]- Tent city
- Burj el-Barajneh refugee camp in the Lebanon
- United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
- United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East
Other websites
[change | change source]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- Camp Management Toolkit Archived 2007-12-14 at the Wayback Machine published by Norwegian Refugee Council
- Shelter Library Archived 2007-10-27 at the Wayback Machine Resource for organisations responding to the transitional settlement and shelter needs of displaced populations
- U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants' Campaign to End Refugee Warehousing Archived 2007-08-14 at the Wayback Machine in refugee camps around the world, people are confined to their settlement and denied their basic rights.