Refugee journey

No one can be a refugee for ever. No one wants to leave their permanent home, community, country and continent permanently. The refugee journey starts with leaving home, community or country and ends with return to home, community, country or continent.

The migration or refugee journey starts with unfavourable conditions in home country or community but in other cases, people are forced into the journey because of slavery, false hopes or promises. When they depart from their permanent home, they the preference is to stay near home where they have access to relatives, their community and people they relate with in terms of race, language and practices. For refugees, this could be a refugee camp. For migrants this could be an industrial area or town. If conditions become good, they can return or return frequently. If conditions are not good, they move on to another place especially outside the country. This is a difficult decision because they will be moving away from permanent home where there is the comfort of family and community. The next step is to move to places with more favourable opportunities especially outside the continent, again, this is a very difficult decision. Refugees or migrants will take up opportunities for permanent residency or citizenship but they will remain connected and attached to their place, country or continent of origin.