A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees. Hundreds of thousands of people may live in any one single camp. Usually they are built and run by a government, the United Nations, or international organizations, (such as the Red Cross) or NGOs.
Refugee camps are generally set up in an impromptu fashion and designed to meet basic human needs for only a short time. Some refugee camps are dirty and unhygienic. If the return of refugees is prevented (often by civil war), a humanitarian crisis can result.
Some refugee camps have existed for decades and some people can stay in refugee camps for decades, both of which have major implications for human rights. Some grow into permanent settlements and even merge with nearby older communities, such as Ein el-Helweh and Deir al-Balah.
Read more about Refugee Camp: Facilities, Duration, Exportation, Notable Camps
Famous quotes containing the words refugee and/or camp:
“The refugee uncertain at the door
You make at home; deftly you steady
The drunk clambering on his undulant floor.”
—John Frederick Nims (b. 1913)
“A healthy man, with steady employment, as wood-chopping at fifty cents a cord, and a camp in the woods, will not be a good subject for Christianity. The New Testament may be a choice book to him on some, but not on all or most of his days. He will rather go a-fishing in his leisure hours. The Apostles, though they were fishers too, were of the solemn race of sea-fishers, and never trolled for pickerel on inland streams.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)