The New Nation - Internet Edition

ARMED conflicts and 'violence' displaced more than 26 million people within their own countries in 2007 - the highest number in over a decade. Last year, the number of displaced people rose sharply to almost 2.5 million in Iraq, 1.4 million in Congo and one million in Somalia. While there is growing international attention to the plight, no breakthrough in reducing their numbers or improving their situation was in sight as media reported recently from Geneva quoting Norwegian Refugee Council specialists. The number of such displaced people reached 24.5 million in 2006 and that figure continued to grow in 2007. In Columbia and Sudan, significant populations were displaced internally.

As monitored by an international body, beyond displacement, these refugees were also 'too frequently victims of the gravest human rights abuses,' facing continuing attacks as well as hunger and disease. Many national governments in 2007 were still unwilling or unable to prevent people being forced from their homes or provide adequate assistance to the displaced ones. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees also pointed to the unwillingness of some governments to provide their own uprooted people with adequate protection and assistance. The displaced were among the most vulnerable to rising food and energy prices that sparked riots.

Many of the displaced population end up among the urban poor, or if they are in rural areas they do not usually have direct access to farming and are impacted by rising prices in their lives. Rising food prices also extend poverty and generate instability and confrontation, and help trigger war and conflict. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees very rightly said with a note of warning that economic and environmental factors were the growing causes of conflict and displacement, thus complicating further the attempts of aid agencies to achieve a peaceful resolution.