AU plans landmark convention on internal refugees

By Emma Batha

LONDON (Reuters) - African countries are set to adopt a ground-breaking convention providing rights to millions of people forced to flee their homes because of conflict.

Africa has some 12 million internally displaced people (IDPs) who are uprooted within their own country. Unlike refugees -- people who have fled to another country -- IDPs benefit from little or no protection.

The convention, the brainchild of the African Union, will for the first time provide them with similar rights to refugees, according to a draft seen by Reuters.

U.N. refugee chief Antonio Guterres welcomed the initiative and hoped other regions would follow suit.

"This will be the first international legally binding instrument in relation to internal displacement and we hope that this can become an example to be followed in other parts of the world," he said.

"We are talking about ... a full range or rights that up to a certain extent are similar to those granted by the 1951 (U.N.) convention to refugees when they live in a foreign country."

The African Union, which groups 53 countries, expects the convention to be adopted at a summit on refugees and IDPs opening in the Ugandan capital Kampala on October 19.

Although refugees and IDPs have often fled their homes for the same reasons, there are crucial differences in how the two groups are treated.