ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 Health challenges for refugees and conflict-induced migrants: transit conditions, camps, and settlements. The vast majority of the victims of contemporary armed conflicts are civilians. Chapter 2 explores the upstream contributors to Southern conflicts and treats the initial stages of conflict-induced migration. Civilian casualties present an immediate and often exclusively family- and community-attended crisis concern. Increased combatant targeting of civilians and health facilities and personnel is documented. For survivors, the “first killer is flight.” The health consequences of conflict-associated injuries and the physical- and mental-health impacts of involuntary internal displacement (and forced immobility) also receive attention. Chapter 2 then devotes attention to refugees, asylum seekers, and “people of concern” to UNHCR. Physical- and mental-health conditions in camps, settlements, and detention centers are explored. Health and safety issues association with repatriation are considered. The chapter concludes by exploring avenues for enhancing prospects that health becomes a promising bridge to peace rather than a terrible consequence of conflict.
