They have been forced from their homes for many of the same reasons as refugees, but have not crossed an international border. Often persecuted or under attack by their own governments, they are frequently in a more desperate situation than refugees. They also outnumber refugees two to one. No international agency has a formal mandate to aid them. But they are increasingly at the forefront of the humanitarian agenda. They are sometimes called 'internal refugees', but are more often known as internally displaced persons.

Since the end of the Cold War, the number of people uprooted by conflict, ethnic strife and human rights violations has soared. In 2004 there were between 20-25 million internally displaced persons (see Figure 7.1). By then the number of refugees – those who fled or had been pushed out of their own countries – had declined to 9.2 million from 9.6 million in 2003. This trend was already apparent in 2001 during the war in Afghanistan, when the number of internally displaced persons in the country stood at 2 million. However, in the same year only 200,000 Afghans crossed into Pakistan as refugees.

In 2003, during the war in Iraq, hundreds of thousands of displaced people remained at risk inside the country; only a very small number were able to flee abroad. In some African humanitarian crises, there can be ten internally displaced persons for every refugee. Currently there are an estimated 1.4 million people displaced by conflict in Uganda, at least 1.5 million in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and 6 million in Sudan. But only 30,000 displaced people from Uganda have gone on to become refugees, while the numbers for the DRC and Sudan are 469,000 and 703,000, respectively.

Sometimes, mountains and rivers impede flight across borders, or people may flee to other parts of their own country to remain in relatively familiar surroundings. Even when they do manage to cross national frontiers, however, the displaced rarely find a welcome. Hostility to refugees and asylum seekers has grown since the end of the Cold War, with many countries seeing it as too costly or destabilizing to admit them. In several recent emergencies, states have closed their borders to refugees or adopted restrictive admission policies. As a result, there is an inverse relationship between the rising number of internally displaced persons and the declining figure for refugees.

The statistics on internally displaced persons generally count only those who are displaced by conflict and persecution.[1] But millions more have been uprooted within their own countries by natural disasters. Indeed, UNHCR helped some of the survivors of the Asian tsunami of 2004. By doing so, the agency went beyond its core mandate of assisting refugees. However, it only aided victims in countries where its staff were already present, and then only if it were asked to help.

Even development projects can cause internal displacement. Poor, indigenous and marginalized groups are frequently displaced without consultation to make way for grand national projects. Not only are the rights of such people ignored, they are rarely offered resettlement or adequate compensation.[2] According to the World Bank, 10 million people are forcibly displaced by development projects each year, prompting the Bank and other donors to set standards for the treatment of the 'involuntarily resettled'.

Though displacement has many causes, it is those uprooted by conflict and human rights violations who generally arouse the most concern. The overwhelming need of these people for protection from their own governments draws international attention to their plight. Like refugees, they cannot obtain the security and well-being they need in their own countries, and therefore turn to the international community. According to the Global IDP Survey, there are more than 13 million internally displaced persons in Africa, 5-6 million in Asia (including the Middle East), 3 million in Europe and 3-4 million in the Americas.[3]

Box 6.2 Afghanistan - a complex transition

A special category?

Notes

1. See the database of the Global IDP Project of the Norwegian Refugee Council (www.IDPProject.org) and the World Refugee Survey of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.

2. W. C. Robinson, Risks and Rights: the Causes, Consequences and Challenges of Development-Induced Displacement, Brookings-SAIS Project on Internal Displacement, May 2003.

3. See www.IDPProject.org. The figures are largely 'guesstimates'. They include both people who are in a state of vulnerability and need international attention and those who may be well integrated, even well-off, in their countries, but who cannot return to the areas of the country from which they originally came and where they have property claims. These figures may also include children and grandchildren of originally displaced persons. Criteria for deciding when displacement ends are currently being developed by the Representative of the Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons in response to a request from the Emergency Relief Coordinator.