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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | India has 11th most domestic refugees -Atul Thakur

India has 11th most domestic refugees -Atul Thakur

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published Published on Aug 28, 2012   modified Modified on Aug 28, 2012
-The Times of India
Refugees
India, dubbed 'the melting pot of cultural diversity', is also home to the world's 11th largest population of 'Internally Displaced People' (IDP). These people are forced to relocate fearing religious, ethnic or other persecution in conflict-induced situations. India and Turkey are the only 'stable' country in the list of 12 nations which have witnessed forced migration of a million or more. Others are either ravaged by ongoing wars or are recovering from major recent tragedies. Seven of these 12 countries are ranked under 20 in Foreign Policy magazine's failed state index.

These numbers come from the IDP database created by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC). The database, which was created at the UN's request, is run by NRC's Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) and is unique in being the only provider of global IDP figures.

According to IDMC's conservative estimates, there were over 5.06 lakh IDP in India as of December 2011. This included 79,000 in the country's northeast. IDMC's August 8 alert reports 4 lakh people displaced in Assam, which was triggered by the recent riots. Adding these numbers to the December figures takes India's IDP population to 9.06 lakh.

This is significantly higher than the notorious and much publicised terrains of war-torn Afghanistan, South Sudan, Occupied Palestinian Territory (West Bank and Gaza Strip), Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and so on. Of course, these countries have much smaller populations, so the proportion of their populace that is internally displaced is much higher than in India's case.

With 4.79 lakh IDPs, India's northeast has witnessed the biggest exodus of people who were forced to leave their homes. The Kashmiri Pandit diaspora, estimated at 2.5 lakh, constitutes India's second largest IDP population. Naxal violence has forced about 1.5 lakh people to leave their homes while another 29,000 are displaced by communal violence in Gujarat and Orissa.

IDMC estimates that there are about 2.64 crore internally displaced people across the world. Sadly, this number is increasing over the years. In 1989, since when the data is available, there were 1.65 crore people who had to leave their homes because of conflict-induced hardships. The past two decades have witnessed an increase of about 60% in this number.

The Colombian armed conflict, which is ongoing since the late 1960s, has displaced the maximum number of people. It is estimated that there are about 39 to 55 lakh IDPs in that country. Similarly, the conflicts and insurgency in Iraq, Sudan, Syria, Somalia and Pakistan have displaced millions.

Nigeria, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo are not going through major wars but they have a history of recent conflicts and their governments are criticised for being among the world's most non-functional and corrupt regimes.

The UNDP estimates that Operation Murambatsvina - the Zimbabwean government's campaign to forcefully clear the slums -- has affected about a million people. Congo- DR on the other hand was the theatre of Africa's deadliest war which was fought between 1998 and 2003. The war reportedly killed over 5.4 million people (figure disputed by some experts) and displaced millions more.

Similarly, the Algerian civil war, which started in 1991, lasted for more than a decade. The Maghreb - Northwest Africa - is also subject to insurgency which is ongoing since the early 2000s. The Turkish-Kurdish conflict is ongoing since the last four decades. At its peak, which was in the 1980s and 1990s, it also affected thousands of lives.

Analysing the year-on-year trend, it appears that India has a relatively stable IDP population. In 2001, there were about 5 lakh internally displaced people. Following the Gujarat riots, this number increased to 6.5 lakh in 2002. It came down to 6 lakh in 2004 and remained constant until 2007. In 2008 and 2009, the IDP population further reduced to 5 lakh. During this period, the Naxals and the subsequent government operations against the insurgents caused forced displacement of people in Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh. Also, the communal riots in Kandhamal forced thousands to take shelter in camps. The IDP population again touched 6.5 lakh in 2010, but came down to 5 lakh in 2011 before the current Assam violence pushed it up again.


The Times of India, 28 August, 2012, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-has-11th-most-domestic-refugees/articleshow/15859672.cms


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