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Egeland: Generations are judged by the gravity of displacement in the world
Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)
March 22, 2006

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/EVOD-6N5JQW?OpenDocument

Geneva (KUNA) – The UN Humanitarian Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland said Wednesday that a generation marks its contributions by the number of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and their deteriorating living conditions.

Egeland added that on this note the XRAY is very alarming for the Generation that has not well done on this count.

"We are doing much worse than in 2005 in regards to solving the IDP problem," he added.

The UN senior official, who was introducing the report of the Norwegian Refugee Council's Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, said that although the number of people internally displaced within their own countries by conflict decreased slightly during 2005, the global internal displacement crisis remained at an alarming level.

Resident Representative of the Geneva office of the Norwegian Refugee Council Elisabeth Rasmusson said that the report clearly shows that most governments in countries affected by conflict fail to live up to their responsibility to prevent arbitrary displacement and ensure the safety and well-being of their displaced citizens.

"Even worse, the very governments that have committed themselves under international law to protect and assist their citizens are in many cases among the main perpetrators of arbitrary displacement," she added.

The 83-page report, titled "Internal Displacement: Global Overview of Trends and Developments in 2005", says that IDPs outnumber refugees by almost two to one. Some 23.7 million people were internally displaced at the end of 2005 (down from 25.3 million in the previous year), more than half of them in Africa.

Egeland slammed at the African leadership saying that they were horrendous in the past generation and responsible for lack of protection for IDPs, and that they have to face that truth.

However, as a civilization, he added, "we cannot sit in the Gulf or in Europe or in North America and say this is not our business, it is our bussiness to help people when they are in such dire situation, and we can do more".

Over two million people were driven from their homes in 2005 alone, nearly 600,000 of them as a result of the Zimbabwean government's crackdown on urban shanty dwellings.

Hundreds of thousands of others were uprooted by the conflicts in Colombia, DR Congo, Iraq and Sudan.

With over 5 million IDPs, Sudan remained at the top of the list of the countries with the largest internal displacement situations, followed by Colombia (up to 3.7 million), Uganda (2 million), DR Congo (1.7 million) and Iraq (1.3 million).

Representative of the Norwegian Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre Jens Hagen Eschenbacher said that most of the displacement in Iraq of some 1.3 million people resulted from policies of the former Iraqi regime.

He added that the Norwegian centre is currently undertaking a report on the effects of the separation barrier on internal displacement among the Palestinians.

A quarter of the world's population some six million people receive no protection from their governments, according to the report.

A similarly high number of IDPs cannot turn to their own authorities for humanitarian assistance.

In 16 of the 50 countries affected by conflict-related internal displacement – including Zimbabwe, Sudan, Côte d'Ivoire and Colombia – governments or government proxies were responsible for arbitrarily uprooting people on the territory under their control.

Donor governments and the United Nations have largely failed to close the gap, the report finds.

Not nearly enough was done to put political pressure on governments, fund IDP programs, and set up a functioning system to assist and protect IDPs.

The report's findings underline the urgent need to carry on with the reform of the current humanitarian response system. Stepping up efforts to protect IDPs from human rights abuses and provide them with food, shelter and health care so that they can survive and rebuild their lives must remain an urgent priority, the report says.

However, humanitarian assistance cannot be a substitute for genuine political efforts – at both the national and international levels – to end the conflicts leading to displacement and address their root causes.

"Ultimately, only sustained and concerted investments in conflict prevention, peace building and post-conflict recovery in affected countries will lead to a tangible reduction of the scope of the worldwide internal displacement crisis", concludes the report.

In the context of an ongoing humanitarian crisis a high-level talks on the crisis in northern Uganda took place in Geneva Monday between Egeland and representatives of the Ugandan government, and a and a core group of donor countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, Norway, the Netherlands and Canada.

The meeting, which aimed at resolving the conflict peacefully, also aims at ensuring that the 2 million people internally displaced in the north of the country are properly protected and assisted without further delay.

It has also been convened by the United Nations to agree on main elements of an action plan to address the crisis in northern Uganda with the Ugandan government.

The conflict has led to countless killings of innocent civilians, the abduction of over 24,000 children by the rebel Lord Resistance Army and the displacement of 90 per cent of the north's population into squalid and unprotected camps.

Over 900 civilians die each week as a direct result of the conflict.

Both the Ugandan military and the Lord's Resistance Army continue to commit grave human rights abuses with impunity.

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