• Conflict refugees and IDPs

Conflict refugees and IDPs

This document provides a comprehensive review of the 2009 situation of internally displaced people (IDPs). The paper aims to provide information on these different situations from regional and country-specific perspectives, while providing an analysis of the different situations of IDPs globally. The report monitors only internal displacement caused by armed conflict and violence; it does not include people internally displaced by natural or human-made disasters, or by development projects.

The report finds the following:

• at the end of 2009, the number of people internally displaced by conflict across the world stood at approximately 27.1 million
• internal armed conflict, rather than international armed conflict, has caused most internal displacement in the last decade
• over half of the world’s IDPs were in five countries: Sudan, Colombia, Iraq, DRC and Somalia
• internally displaced children faced risks including forced recruitment into armed forces, and Internally displaced women and children were particularly exposed to rape and sexual violence
• in many countries which did not have complex emergency situations, IDPs were in precarious situations
• a notable development in 2009 was the new support by some governments to settlement elsewhere or to local integration.
  

The paper makes the following recommendations:

• in the shorter term, there is a need for more sustained assistance in post-emergency situations, to enable people to start the process of recovery
• the long-term development of areas which have faced cycles of neglect and conflict is necessary for durable solutions to be possible
• states must establish institutional responses including policy, legislation, programmes and government structures
• IDPs must be able to make a free and informed choice of whether to return in conditions of safety, to integrate locally or settle permanently elsewhere.
  
  

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