Displaced Persons

The term displaced persons refers to individuals who are forced to flee from their homes, often suddenly, due to some type of crisis, such as conflict or a natural disaster. This type of crisis is also commonly referred to as forced migration. Mass forced migration that results in large numbers of people fleeing their homes is a relatively new phenomenon; it is often the result of violent armed civil conflict that causes thousands, sometimes millions, of people to leave their communities, often across international borders.

Even though people become displaced for a range of reasons, the priMary cause of displacement is conflict. The pattern of world conflict has changed considerably in the last few decades, with a shift away from interstate conflict over territory and toward a pattern of intrastate conflict involving one or more rebel groups fighting against government forces. Most of these conflicts are in sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia, where violent civil wars have cost the lives of millions, with millions more being displaced from their homes.

Typically with a natural disaster, the displaced populations can return home as soon as their communities become safe again, and life goes back to normal. But when people are forced to flee their homes and communities due to conflict, their situations and the response from the international community become far more complicated.

International law stipulates different categories of displacement based upon the circumstances surrounding the forced migration. Thus, different [Page 387]terms are used to describe displaced populations. It is important to understand the various legal designations of displacement since it is often the designation that determines the level of protection and services provided to the displaced population. Essentially, there are three legal designations, or legal statuses, for individuals who are forced to flee their homes: (1) refugee status, (2) internally displaced person (IDP) status, and (3) stateless person status.

• ♦
  According to international law, individuals may be granted refugee status by the United Nations (UN) if they meet the criteria set forth by the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which states that refugees are those individuals who have a reasonable fear of persecution based upon their race, religious beliefs, nationality, or membership in a particularly social and/or political group. One of the most significant requirements for gaining refugee status is that the individual must have fled across international borders.
• ♦
  When people are forcibly displaced from their homes and communities but do not cross international borders, they are referred to as internally displaced persons. IDPs may also include situations involving cycles of violence (not rising to the level of civil war), natural disasters, or mass human rights violations.
• ♦
  Stateless persons are defined as people who have no nationality. People become stateless for a variety of reasons, including situations in which a country no longer exists, such as Palestinians living in Jordan, or the Roma people, who have migrated throughout Europe for more than a century.

Nyanzale, in the Masisi, a small town where the population has more than doubled with the arrival of 20,000 people displaced from villages up to a Day's walk away. The people fled out of fear because of fighting between rebel forces and the Democratic Republic of the Congo armed forces. Most of the world's displaced populations come from Africa and Asia

...