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The many faces of displacement: IDPs in Zimbabwe
Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC)
August 21, 2008

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Executive summary

Hundreds of thousands of people have been internally displaced in Zimbabwe as a result of the actions of their own government. Most recently, tens of thousands of people have been displaced by a campaign of state-sponsored violence following the elections on 29 March 2008. In 2005, an urban clear-up operation referred to as Operation Murambatsvina (Operation "Clear the Filth") was estimated by the United Nations to have made 570,000 people homeless. Hundreds of thousands of farm workers and their families have been displaced as a result of the government's fast-track land reform and resettlement programme, which started in 2000. Other groups of people have been arbitrarily displaced for different reasons at different times.

Zimbabwe does not have any of the outward signs of other large displacement crises, such as camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs); the crisis is to a large extent hidden. There are no official government statistics relating to these displaced populations; indeed, the government has consistently failed to acknowledge both the reality of displacement, and that its policies have caused internal displacement. Government obstruction means that no agency has been able to conduct a comprehensive survey to determine the number of IDPs. Indeed, so sensitive is the issue of displacement in Zimbabwe that IDPs in Zimbabwe are nsot even called IDPs but instead have come to be referred to as "mobile and vulnerable populations". Most if not all of the hundreds of thousands of displaced people in Zimbabwe are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance and protection.

However, in today's Zimbabwe, displacement is by no means the only cause of vulnerability. Against the background of the general political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe the question must be asked whether IDPs there are in need of assistance and protection by virtue of their being displaced, or whether their circumstances are in fact no different from the majority of Zimbabwe's citizens who have been left struggling to cope with the combined effects of hyperinflation, unemployment levels above 80 per cent, food shortages, fuel shortages, power cuts, water cuts, and the breakdown of education and health services. The answer to this question is clear: internally displaced people are indeed among the most vulnerable groups in Zimbabwe. Thus according to UNICEF: "The most acute humanitarian needs include those of populations affected by serious food insecurity, HIV and cholera outbreaks as well as those displaced during the fast-track land reform programme, Operation Murambatsvina (OM) and more recent re-evictions" [emphasis added].

While large numbers of Zimbabweans are struggling to cope with the impact of the country's economic meltdown and the government's widespread human rights violations, IDPs are generally less able to cope with the hardships of Zimbabwe's shrinking economy and diminishing livelihood opportunities. While in the current circumstances it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between IDPs and the general population in Zimbabwe in terms of humanitarian needs, that assessment is likely to change if and when Zimbabwe is set on a path to recovery. At that time, many of Zimbabwe's displaced people will be less able to take advantage of new opportunities, and many will have needs for assistance over and above those of the general population. An appropriate response to those needs will have to be formulated, and a strategy for providing durable solutions for IDPs must be developed.

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