Some 25 million people around the world have fled conflicts or have been forced out of their homes by their governments and are living in another part of their country, a report for the United Nations said on Wednesday.
Of these, some three million were uprooted in 2003, most of them in Africa, and nearly all are exposed to serious human rights abuses, said the report by the Norwegian Refugee Council.
“Internal displacement is one of the great tragedies of our time, with millions of people every year being forced to flee within their own country from war and violence,” Council Secretary-General Raymond Johansen said.
The report said the U.S.-proclaimed “War on Terror” had made things worse by encouraging governments to seek military solutions to conflicts “and undermining respect for international humanitarian and human rights standards.”
“Labelling rebel groups ’terrorists’ allowed a number of regimes to intensify counter-insurgency campaigns, attract foreign military aid, and avoid international criticism of human rights abuses against civilians,” the Council said.
Johansen said the survey showed “the victims of internal displacement often cannot count on their governments for protection... in several cases the governments themselves are responsible for the forced displacement of their citizens.”
Internally displaced people, or IDPs in relief agency terminology, are people who remain within their home country’s own borders -- often living in makeshift camps -- after escaping conflict. They are present in 52 countries.
Refugees are those who flee into other countries. The UN refugee agency UNHCR, which looks after them, says there are some 20 million around the world -- also mainly in Africa.
The Council report, compiled by its Geneva-based Global IDP Project, said Sudan had the highest number of IDPs with a total of four million. The Democratic Republic of Congo and Colombia had three million each, and Uganda, Iraq and Burma each had around one million.
Over nine million, or more than a third of all IDPs, the Council said, are trapped in desperate conditions where their lives are in constant danger from fighting near their place of refuge or from dismal conditions.
Other regions with the world’s top 10 worst IDP situations, were Burma, Burundi, Ivory Coast, Indonesia’s Aceh province, Liberia, Russia’s rebel Chechnya region, and Somalia.