refugee, IDP, evacuee

[Paul Frank]

Isn't the word refugee usually reserved to talk about people who flee for
refuge in a foreign country? In Eritrea, where I was living until a few
months ago, English speakers used the unwieldy term "internally displaced
person" to refer to internal refugees. Unfortunately, the situation is so
bad in Eritrea that there are also more and more refugees from Eritrea to
Sudan and Ethiopia. Most Americans are probably not familiar with the term
IDP, so I guess evacuee is more accurate than refugee. Perhaps this is a
pedantic distinction. The federal government's criminal negligence of the
plight of (poor and mostly black) American victims of this disaster is
another matter...

Paul
______________________________________
Paul Frank
Chinese-English translation: social sciences
German-English translation: sinology
French-English translation: sinology
paulfrank at post.harvard.edu