The IDP Crisis

  Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) chief Jan Egeland, said, “We are failing to protect the world’s most vulnerable people from conflict and disasters.”

A person was forced to flee their home inside their own country every single SECOND last year. The number of people living in internal displacement is at a record high.

The total number of people living in internal displacement (IDPs) around the world is a record 55 million, that is double the roughly 26 million people who have fled across borders as refugees.

The report found that three-quarters of the people who fled internally last year were victims of natural disasters, in particular ones related to extreme weather. Intense cyclones, monsoon rains and floods hit highly exposed and densely populated areas in Asia and the Pacific, while the Atlantic hurricane season “was the most active on record,” it pointed out. “Extended rainy seasons across the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa uprooted millions more.” Experts say climate change is increasing the intensity and frequency of such extreme weather events.

A convergence of conflicts and natural disasters was making the problem worse, with 95 percent of last year’s new conflict displacements occurring in countries vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

“Climate change and the overexploitation of natural resources may aggravate instability and conflict, which in turn may trigger displacement.”

In addition, nearly 10 million of those newly displaced last year were fleeing conflicts and violence, the report said. The majority were in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria and Ethiopia. Escalating violence and the expansion of armed groups in Ethiopia, Mozambique and Burkina Faso had fuelled some of the world’s fastest growing displacement crises last year.

Unlike disaster-driven displacement, which is usually short-lived as people return to rebuild damaged or destroyed homes once the storms have passed, conflict-fuelled displacement can last years. All but seven million of the 55 million people living in internal displacement at the end of last year had fled conflict.

Number of IDPs in the world reaches record high of 55m | Humanitarian Crises News | Al Jazeera