Encyclopedia of Islam

refugees

---

ses can be expected to expand should conflict in 

the region continue.

Other significant refugee populations in Mus-

lim-majority countries at the dawn of the 21st cen-

tury include over 4.5 million displaced Sudanese 

(with at least 475,000 forced abroad in the past 

decade). In recent years as many as one million of 

these have come from the region of Darfur, where 

an ethnic civil war erupted in 2003. They have 

combined with internal refugees from conflict in 

Chad to form an estimated refugee population in 

that country of nearly one-half million. There is 

also a large refugee population in Somalia, as a 

result of civil war and foreign invasions. Approxi-

mately 150,000 Sahrawis from Spanish Sahara live 

as refugees in the Algerian desert pending resolu-

tion of the status of Western Sahara, now claimed 

by m

orocco

. The Bosnian war of 1992–95 created 

more than a million internal refugees, but with 

the end of the war, many of the displaced have 

returned to their homes.

See also  a

rab

-i

sraeli

 

conFlicts

;  a

rmenians

; 

b

osnia

 

and

  h

erzegovina

;  g

UlF

 W

ars

;  h

iJra

; 

hUman

 

rights

; i

srael

; k

ashmir

; s

Udan

; t

aliban

.

Nancy L. Stockdale