IDPaction - Facts & Figures

There are as many internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Africa as there are in the rest of the world put together – approximately 12 million IDPs out of a global total of about 25 million. This compares with a figure of around 2.6 million refugees in Africa. Armed conflict is the leading cause of displacement in Africa. However, many people are also displaced as a result of forced relocation, communal violence, natural and ecological disasters and systematic violations of human rights. In the main conflict zones of the Great Lakes, West Africa and Darfur, Sudan, thousands of IDPs have been killed, raped or abducted. Thousands more are at risk of disease or starvation. Often, displacement quickly becomes long-term – people remain for many years in poorly serviced camps, with little in the way of education and health-care and cut off from the political and social life of the country. Many others find their way to urban centres where they eke out a living, unable or unwilling to access state services, either because they lack official documents, or because they fear persecution by the authorities.

People who are displaced and cross an international border come under the protection of the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1969 Organization of African Union Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa. But the tragedy for the internally displaced is that they remain the responsibility of the state which in many cases has caused them to flee, or which has been unable or unwilling to protect them from displacement. Since the legal safeguards for IDPs are weak, the policy response is similarly inadequate. IDPs are left at the extreme of vulnerability. The international community has historically turned a blind eye to the plight of IDPs arguing that it is a matter of national sovereignty. But there is increasing recognition that the rights and welfare of IDPs themselves must come first.