Amina Aden, a refugee woman from Somalia wonders what lies in the the future for her and her family. Having been a health worker back home in Zeila District, she has now been reduced to living at Aisha Camp on the Ethiopian border after the military entered her district and started shooting.

"We lost everything to war," says Aden, a mother of five children who live with her at the camp.

She and her civil servant husband, with whom they were separated for four years, lived in a good house, but she could not carry anything when they left. "We did not have time to pack or collect our valuables. We left everything we worked hard for," She silently looks forward to the day the war will end and they will be able to return home.

According to the UNHCR there are 3.3 million refugees, 1.6 million internally displaced persons and 1.3 million former refugees in Africa.

UNHCR Regional Director for East and the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes Region, Ms Wairimu Karago estimates that two-thirds of these are women and children.

The UNHCR's primary mandate is to protect refugees and find lasting solutions to their problems; as well as protect and promote the human rights of refugees, in accordance with Articles 1 and 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which asserts women's rights as human rights.

"A day in the life of a refugee woman has as many problems as any other woman but with enough problems that are more complicated," says Karago. Many refugee camps are situated in extremely arid areas with no infrastructure. This has made refugees completely dependent on the supply of even basic commodities from the international community.

The UNHCR has implemented several commitments to improving the lot of refugee women adopted five years ago in Dakar and Beijing, including the adoption of food distribution programmes with a focus on the health of refugee women.

Other innovations include the introduction of literacy classes, skills-training and child-care centre to free women and girls to join skill-training programmes At one camp, mobile courts have established to facilitate the prosecution of sex offenders.

Education of refugees and returnee girl children has also received attention. There have been significant measures to promote girls enrolment , attendance and participation in schools.

However, Karago commented that funding of refugee programmes remains a constraint. "We have not been able to utilise some of the programmes," she says. Other constraints include the changing character of the refugee camps.

The major challenge remains finding peaceful solutions to conflicts around Africa. "We have to imbibe a culture of tolerance and we must, absolutely uphold human rights," she says.