Record 50 million persons displaced internally: Monitors
28 April, 2020
Conflict and disaster forced a lot more than 33 million persons to flee of their own countries this past year, putting them at greater risk amid the global COVID-19 pandemic, monitors said Tuesday.
The brand new figure brings the total number of people surviving in internal displacement to a record 50.8 million, according to a written report by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).
The number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) is far greater than the some 26 million who've fled across borders as refugees.
"IDPs tend to be highly vulnerable people surviving in crowded camps, emergency shelters and informal settlements with little if any access to healthcare," IDMC director Alexandra Bilak said in a statement.
"The global coronavirus pandemic can make them more vulnerable still," she said, warning it could "compromise their already precarious living conditions by further limiting their access to essential services and humanitarian aid."
The report found that conflict forced 8.5 million IDPs to flee this past year in countries like Syria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and South Sudan.
Together with those already displaced, more than 45 million people live in internal displacement due to conflict, including nearly 6.5 million in Syria, which includes been ravaged by nine years of civil war.
Another 5.1 million people were surviving in internal displacement due to natural disasters by the end of 2019, out of almost 25 million who fled their homes because of such disasters over summer and winter
'Failing by epic proportions'
"Year after year, conflict and violence uproot millions of individuals from their homes," NRC chief Jan Egeland said in the statement.
"Collectively, we are failing by epic proportions to safeguard the world's most vulnerable," he lamented, calling for concerted action and insisting that "in this age of coronavirus, continued political violence is completely senseless."
Some 4.5 million were forced to flee their homes by cyclone Fani in India and Bangladesh, cyclones Idai and Kenneth in Mozambique and hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas.
Heavy and prolonged rains and flooding in Africa forced another two million persons into internal displacement last year, the report said.
But Bilak noted to AFP that a lot of displacements because of natural disasters were actually "government-led, preemptive evacuations to save lots of lives and protect people" and that a lot of people will be able to return home relatively quickly, "given that their home is not completely destroyed".
In the years ahead, Bilak warned that the coronavirus pandemic will make it more difficult for countries to take the steps had a need to evacuate before weather hazards hit, since thousands of people should not be crowded together in shelters.
"How you balance those time-sensitive humanitarian relief efforts together with your national effort to fight the spread of COVID will be a hard balancing act," she said.
Source: www.thejakartapost.com
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