allAfrica.com * Country Has 1.2m IDPs - UN Report New Vision (Kampala) NEWS 20 June 2008 Posted to the web 23 June 2008 By Steven Candia Kampala UGANDA hosts 1.2m of the 13.7m internally displaced persons (IDPs) in 23 countries, according to a recent international survey. In the UN survey 2007 Global Trends, Colombia tops with three million IDPs, Iraq with 2.4m, Democratic Republic of Congo with 1.3m, closely followed by Uganda and Somalia at 1m. The details emerged as the world marks refugee day, amid reports of a soaring number of both IDPs and refugees for the second year running. The rise has been blamed on conflict and persecution at the end of last year. In Uganda, the report said, the number of IDPs dropped from 1.8m after about 579,000 IDPs returned to their villages, following the return of relative peace to the northern and eastern parts of the country. "Both IDPs and IDP returnees, continue to benefit from UNHCR's protection and assistance under the Cluster Approach. In Sudan, the number of IDPs reported by UNHCR was around 1.25 million by the end of the year," the report said. In Africa, the report said, the number of refugees had dropped due to interventions, but also noted that emergent conflicts had led to outflows of refugees. "Conversely, the number of refugees decreased by six per cent during the year, primarily due to the successful voluntary repatriation operations to Sudan (130,700), the Democratic Republic of Congo (59,800), Liberia (44,400), and Burundi (39,800)." "This notwithstanding, renewed armed conflict and gross human rights violations in the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia and Sudan also led to refugee outflows of almost 120,000 people to Kenya (25,000), Cameroon (25,000), Sudan (22,500), and Uganda (9,400)," the report said. "After a five-year decline in the number of refugees between 2001 and 2005, we have now seen two years of increases, and that's a concern," the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, AntÃ'nio Guterres, said in London as he kicked off a week of activities to mark the World Refugee Day. He warned of more threats that could escalate the figures. "We are now faced with a complex mix of global challenges that could threaten even more forced displacement in the future. "They range from multiple, new, conflict-related emergencies in world hotspots, to bad governance and environmental degradation that increases competition for scarce resources and extreme price hikes that have hit the poor the hardest and are generating instability in many places." The above factors had pushed the number of refugees under the responsibility from 9.9m to 11.4m. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright © 2008 New Vision. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quantcast