The number of people forcibly displaced by armed conflict and human rights violations remains record high. At the end of last year there were 41.2 million refugees and IDPs worldwide.
After some years with a dramatic increase in the number of people displaced within or outside the borders of their home country, 2008 saw a small decline to 41.2 million forced migrants, according to a report launched by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) in Oslo.
“The numbers speak for themselves; civilians carry the burden of armed conflict”, said Elisabeth Rasmusson, Secretary General of NRC. “The situation represents a political and moral defeat for national authorities as well as the international community. Forced migration warrants a place much higher up on the international agenda”.
There are an estimated 26 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the world, the same number as in 2007 and the highest since the early 1990s, according to IDMC’s report Internal Displacement: Global Overview of Trends and Developments in 2008, which was released in May. Over the last year there has been a slight decline in the number of refugees in exile, with a drop of about 800 000 people to 15.2 million worldwide.
A positive development in 2008 was that refugees were able to return to in particular Afghanistan, Sudan, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo, while ongoing peace processes and recovery plans enabled IDPs to return home in for example Uganda and Timor-Leste.
According to NRC, the Philippines was the most neglected displacement situation in 2008. The world’s largest new displacement last year happened when 600,000 people fled fighting between the army and rebel groups in the southern region of Mindanao. The list of the ten most neglected situations of internal displacement also includes India, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan, the Central African Republic (CAR) and Colombia.
“Most of the world’s 41.2 million displaced never received the attention they deserve and as a result, not the humanitarian assistance and protection they need. There is often lack of political will to focus on armed conflict, violence and human rights violations. Consequently there are no forgotten - only deliberately neglected - displacement situations”, said Rasmusson.
The Norwegian report “Flyktningregnskapet 2009” includes statistics, analysis, country profiles and an overview of terminology, international legal frameworks and conventions.