Thirty two African and European delegations, as well as representatives of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, are participating in meetings that will last until Wednesday.
Because of the frequency of conflicts, one in four of the world's refugees comes from Africa, affirmed at the opening Sylvie Kayitesi Zainabu, President of the National Human Rights Commission of Rwanda. The statistics of these last years show that Africa remains the continent which has the highest number of refugees, displaced populations and stateless people, she regretted. In 2006, Africa sheltered, 11.8 million people displaced inside their own countries, 2.4 million refugees and more than 100 000 stateless people, she specified.
"The 1994 genocide in Rwanda is the climax of more than 30 decades of contempt and of human rights violations ", Mr. Bernard Makuza, Rwandan Prime Minister, affirmed, while proceeding to the opening of the conference. At the origin of the refugee, displaced and stateless peoples problem, there are always government failures to manage their populations, he further specified. To the defenders of human rights, he recommended, "tackling the causes rather than the stagnation in the fight against the consequences"
Mr. Bacre Ndiaye, representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that he was confident in the synergy of intervention of the national institutions in regards to human rights. The network of African national institutions designated its operating departments and adopted an action plan for 2008. The presidency for this 2-year period will be taken by Mrs. Sylvie Kayitesi Zainabu of the Rwandan human rights commission.
SRE/PB/MM
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