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More than 50 million people have been uprooted and currently live in exile in their own countries, forced to flee their homes to escape armed conflict or destruction, a population extremely vulnerable to the dangers associated with the new coronavirus pandemic, they say. released today by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (iDMC) and the Norwegian Council for Refugees (NRC).
No less than 33.4 million people were forced to leave their homes in 2019, remaining within the borders of their country. This is the highest number since 2012. The total number of internally displaced persons has increased to 50.8 million, a record number for the new year, according to the annual report by iDMC and NRC.
The number of internally displaced persons is much greater than that of refugees (26 million) worldwide, they recall.
Displaced people “are often extremely vulnerable, live in overcrowded reception centers, makeshift shelters and informal camps and have little, if any, access to medical care,” Alexandra Bilak, director of iDMC, said in a bulletin. . accompanying the exhibition of the center.
“The global crown pandemic makes them even more vulnerable,” he said, adding that “their already precarious living conditions are deteriorating and their access to basic services and humanitarian aid is even more limited.”
Of the 33.4 million internally displaced youth, 24.9 million were forced to flee their homes due to natural disasters.
The 4.5 million were thrown onto the streets by Hurricane Fanny, which devastated India and Bangladesh, Hurricanes India and Kenneth in Mozambique, and Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas. Another two million have been forced to flee their homes due to torrential rains and floods in Africa.
The vast majority of these people left quickly before the extreme weather hit and were able to return. Just over 5 million people were considered internally displaced due to natural disasters in late 2019.
Amid the pandemic, Alexandra Bilak noted, there is a risk of problems with the rapid movement of people before a natural disaster occurs, as accumulation in shelters will increase the risk of infection. “It will be difficult to strike a balance between humanitarian aid and fighting the spread of the pandemic,” the iDMC director said in a statement to AFP.
At the same time, 8.5 million people were displaced in their countries of origin last year due to armed conflict in 61 countries, including Syria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Burkina Faso, with a total of 45., 7 million. 6.5 million of them are in Syria, a country where war has been raging for the past nine years.
Jan Eggeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, spoke about the “failure of epic proportions” by the international community to protect the uprooted, “the most vulnerable people in the world”.
“In the crown era, ongoing political violence is completely absurd,” he said, calling for a cease-fire and the start of peace talks in all areas where armed clashes erupt.
