The acronym used by the United Nations and international aid organisations for refugees within their own country is IDP. This stands for ‘internally displaced persons’. The term exists because what such people essentially are--refugees—before the law can only be those who sought refuge from whatever situation in another country, across some border. Therefore people who flee their homes and seek shelter within the borders of their own country are not refugees in front of the law but IDPs--they become an acronym.
In East Timor’s capital of Dili this bureaucratic fact turned into harsh reality when two thirds of the city’s population was scared, burnt or looted out of its home into refugee camps spread all over Dili in 2005 and 2006. And no, the camps were not called IDP camps, they were real refugee camps. The only difference between these here and those in other desperate parts of the world was that these people were refugees in camps located just a couple of hundred meters away from their destroyed homes.
In East Timor’s capital of Dili this bureaucratic fact turned into harsh reality when two thirds of the city’s population was scared, burnt or looted out of its home into refugee camps spread all over Dili in 2005 and 2006. And no, the camps were not called IDP camps, they were real refugee camps. The only difference between these here and those in other desperate parts of the world was that these people were refugees in camps located just a couple of hundred meters away from their destroyed homes.
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