Belize: General information, map and situation of Salvadorean refugees, late 1989
| Publisher | Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada |
| Author | Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board, Canada |
| Publication Date | 1 August 1990 |
| Citation / Document Symbol | BLZ6767 |
| Cite as | Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Belize: General information, map and situation of Salvadorean refugees, late 1989, 1 August 1990, BLZ6767, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6abb1e.html [accessed 28 May 2023] |
| Disclaimer | This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. |
As per our telephone conversation, in addition to the sources already available through your regional Documentation Centre please find attached copies of maps and other recently-published documents on Belize. Information on the disappearance of Salvadoreans in Belize in or around August 1989 could not be found among the various sources on Central America currently available to the IRBDC. The Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1989 (Washington: U.S. Department of State, 1990) and its previous issues, and Belize: A country guide (page 14), state that there have been no reports of politically motivated killings or disappearance in Belize.
Regarding the situation of Salvadorean refugees in Belize, the attached reports provide figures and other information for late-1989. The Legal Officer of the UNHCR in Ottawa stated in a telephone communication with the IRBDC on 24 August 1990 that people from Central American countries continue to enter Belize, of which approximately one third are from Guatemala. The UNHCR Officer had just received information that a few individual cases of Salvadoreans in Belize desiring to return to El Salvador, upon their request and on a case by case basis, were being assisted by the UNHCR to repatriate.
The attached documents include:
-World Refugee Survey - 1989 in Review (Washington, D.C.: American Council for Nationalities Service, 1990), p. 69;
-World Refugee Report (Washington, D.C.: Bureau for Refugee Programs/U.S. Department of State, September 1989), pp. 65-66;
-Belize: A Country Guide (New Mexico: Inter-Hemispheric Education Resource Center, 1989), pp. 1-11; 47-49;
-from Refugees (Geneva, UNHCR): "The Promised Land?", November 1989, pp. 13-16; "Said Musa: Minister of Foreign Affairs and Economic Development" (Interview), June 1990, pp. 40-41;
-Map published in Central America Report (Guatemala, Infopress Centroamericana) of 16 June 1989, indicating distribution of refugees in Central America, based on a previously published UNHCR map;
-Sections of a map supplement from National Geographic ("Land of the Maya: A Traveller's Map"), October 1989.
