Abstract

This section composes of the background of the study, the statement of the problem, purpose of the study, the objectives of the study, scope of the study and the significance of the study. 1.1 Background to the study The incident of refugee started as soon as mankind merged into organized communities. From ancient times for many reasons or others, persons were forced to leave their own communities for other places. Such movements might have been caused by oppression by rulers, wars, hunger, or natural catastrophes. The section of the population might be expelled, as Spain did with the Jews and Moors, and as Idi Amin did with the Asians in 1972. More recent times have also seen the forceful movement of nationalities. In Africa soon after the colonialists left and natives assumed the reigns of power, pre-colonial ethnic hatred and jealousy resurfaced, resulting into massive murders, forceful evictions, arrest and destruction of property and other gross violations of human rights. The consequence has been mass evacuation into neighboring countries as refugees (A.G. G Gingyera Pinycwa 1989). Therefore, the humanitarian disasters and solidarity with the displaced people in Africa can best be understood by studying borderlands. This is so because borderlands are peripheral areas far away from central government authority. They are the dynamic areas where people divided by international boundaries interact freely; they often host people 1 of different nationalities but of the same ethnicity. More significant about borderlands is the fact that they are the settings of state marginalization and underdevelopment, and also scenes of armed conflicts, population displacement and resettlements. The Uganda-Sudan borderland is no exception to this reality.