The refugee repatriation experience in Eritrea illustrates the degree of difficulty and complexity of the process of repatriation. Following the Eritrean victory over Ethiopian forces and the cessation of the Erithrean-Ethiopian war in 1991, approximately 88,000 Eritrean refugees in Sudan had repatriated spontaneously, a few of them before the war ended. Approximately 320,000 stayed in exile until an officially organized repatriation began in December 1994.3 Similarly, in places, such as Rwanda and Angola, officially organized refugee repatriations have not proceeded as well as many had hoped. This suggests that conflict cessation is not a sufficient condition for many refugees to return. Do the "kinetics" of the original flight, forms of social differentiation (language, ethnicity, gender, etc.) among refugees, their level of politicization, or the personality characteristics of a refugee play an important role in the decision of how and when to repatriate? In this study, former refugees from Eritrea were interviewed to learn their reasons for either spontaneously repatriating or waiting for official repatriation assistance. The information obtained may contribute to a better understanding of the motivations that help or hinder repatriation efforts and may provide valuable insights to those who must plan future repatriation efforts.

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education residential mobility return migration Cultural Diversity political system cultural anthropology Eritrea refugee economics psychological aspect human Refugees Social Problems Ethnic Groups war ethnic group Political Systems ethnology Humans migration determinant social problem safety Article history migration legal aspect History, 20th Century repatriation public health