Mohammed Abdul* is married and a father to 5 children. He has been living in the Dukwi refugee camp, located near the Botswana-Namibia border for 11 years.  In 2001 he fled the civil war in Somalia taking a long painful journey through Mozambique, Zimbabwe and finally sought refuge in Botswana.

According to UNHCR, Botswana hosts more than 3000 refugees in Dukwi, mainly from Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola, Somalia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. The government of Botswana provides education and health care to the refugees however movement is restricted to the camp unless you have permission from the camp commandant.

“I am excited about going to the US; I hope to start a new life, get a job and citizenship in five years so I can be able to visit my family in Somalia.” says Mohammed.

IOM and the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program has now assisted 270 refugees to begin a new life in the US. The refugees are part of a much larger group of some 1395 refugees who have been assisted by IOM since January 2012.

IOM South Africa conducts pre-departure medical screening, cultural orientation and travel arrangements for refugees accepted for resettlement by the US government following referral by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

For more than 60 years, IOM has played a vital role in resettlement around the world. Resettlement is a sometimes unrecognized yet compelling instrument and symbol of international solidarity and burden sharing to find a durable solution for refugees who are either unable to return to their country of origin for fear of continued persecution or do not have the option to stay in their country of asylum.

The US government provides refugees with legal and physical protection, including access to civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights similar to those enjoyed by nationals.

The United States is by far the largest resettlement country. Since 1975, the United States has resettled more than three million refugees into hundreds of communities around the United States.  The refugees come from more than 70 countries.

UNHCR estimates that there are about 15 million or refugees in the world.  Of those, an estimated 700,000 will need relocation or permanent resettlement in a third country.

IOM initially assisted in the resettlement of Europeans who were displaced in the aftermath of World War II.   Since then, the number of people resettled by IOM has grown rapidly.  According to the World Migration Report, 2012, in the last decade, IOM assisted 810 000 refugees in their resettlement to a third country.

*Names have been changed