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April 28, 2020, Geneva: According to a new report from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC), part of the Norwegian Council for Refugees, the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) worldwide has reached a record high.
The Global Report on Internal Displacement (GRID) estimates that 45.7 million people live in internal displacement as a result of conflict and violence in 61 countries, the majority in Syria, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Yemen and Afghanistan. . . Another 5.1 million in 95 countries are displaced due to disasters. This includes 1.2 million people displaced by years of drought and flooding in Afghanistan, more than 500,000 by monsoon rains in India and 33,000 whose lives are still uprooted a decade after the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
“Internally displaced persons are often very vulnerable people living in crowded camps, emergency shelters and informal settlements with little or no access to medical care,” said IDMC director Alexandra Bilak. “The global coronavirus pandemic will make them even more vulnerable. It will compromise their already precarious living conditions, further limiting their access to essential services and humanitarian aid. “
Contributing to these record numbers, 33.4 million new displacements were recorded in 2019, the highest annual number since 2012. Around 8.5 million took place in the context of conflict and violence in countries such as Syria, DRC, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Burkina Faso. The disasters caused around 24.9 million new displacements, including 4.5 million from Cyclone Fani in India and Bangladesh, Cyclones Idai and Kenneth in Mozambique, and Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas. Prolonged and heavy rains caused widespread flooding in Africa, resulting in two million new displacements.
“Year after year, conflict and violence uproot millions of people from their homes. Collectively, we are failing in epic proportions to protect the world’s most vulnerable. Politicians, generals and diplomats must overcome the stalemates and seek cease-fire and peace talks, not weapons and grenades. In this coronavirus era, continued political violence makes no sense, ”said Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Council for Refugees.
However, this year’s GRID results are also promising. Efforts to prevent and respond to internal displacement were visible in many countries in 2019. Several in Asia showed that displacement in the form of preventive evacuations saves lives, and that effective early warning systems and other measures to reduce disaster risk prevent the worst impacts of disasters
National systems to collect and analyze displacement data were established in Indonesia, Mali and Sri Lanka, and development approaches were launched to solve the problem in Ethiopia and Somalia. The UN Secretary-General established the High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement, an expression of global political commitment, and three other African countries ratified the Kampala Convention, the continent’s unique and legally binding framework on the phenomenon.
“GRID shows that measuring and understanding a problem is the cornerstone of efforts to solve it, but it also takes resources and political commitment if IDPs are to make tangible progress in restoring their lives,” said Bilak. “As the coronavirus pandemic sheds a relentless light on the urgency of our task, we hope that the lessons documented in this report will be helpful in our collective efforts to end internal displacement.”
NOTES TO EDITORS:
About IDMC
The Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC) is the world’s authoritative source of data and analysis on internal displacement. Since its creation in 1998 as part of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), IDMC has provided a rigorous, independent and reliable service to the international community. Our work informs political and operational decisions that improve the lives of the millions of people living in internal displacement and people at risk of future displacement.
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