History2 min read
Luwani Refugee Camp
Also known as Luwani camp
Malawi's other refugee camp, in Neno District: host to Mozambican refugees during the 1977–1992 civil war, closed in 2007 with its last residents moved to Dzaleka, briefly reopened in 2016.
History
Luwani camp, in Neno District in southern Malawi, was part of the infrastructure Malawi built to host Mozambicans fleeing the 1977–1992 civil war — a displacement crisis in which Malawi sheltered around a million people. After the war ended and most Mozambicans returned home, Luwani continued to operate on a much smaller scale for refugees from the Great Lakes region and the Horn of Africa.
Closure and consolidation at Dzaleka
On 26 October 2007, Luwani closed on government orders, and a UNHCR convoy moved its last residents — about 660 refugees and asylum seekers — to Dzaleka. The closure made Dzaleka Malawi’s only refugee camp, a consolidation that shapes the camp’s overcrowding to this day: a single site, designed for a fraction of its current population, absorbing every new arrival to the country.
Brief reopening
In March 2016, the government agreed to reopen Luwani as numbers fleeing renewed political violence in Mozambique grew, and UNHCR began relocating Mozambican asylum seekers there from the border village of Kapise the following month. The reopening proved short-lived: as conditions in Mozambique changed, most residents opted for voluntary repatriation, and the camp wound down again.
Legacy
Luwani appears in Dzaleka’s records: UNHCR nutrition surveys from the mid-2010s covered “Dzaleka and Luwani” together, and Dzaleka’s older residents include people transferred there in the 2007 closure. Luwani’s closure is the point at which Malawi moved to a single-camp system.
References
Sources
- 1Luwani Refugee Camp in Malawi closes as UNHCR moves last residents
UNHCR, October 2007
- 2Malawi to reopen former camp, as Mozambique refugee numbers grow
UNHCR, March 2016
- 3UNHCR begins the relocation of Mozambican asylum-seekers to Luwani camp, Malawi
UNHCR Operational Data Portal, April 2016
- 4Mozambican refugees stuck between somewhere and nowhere
Al Jazeera, 22 July 2016
- 5
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