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IDMC monitors six displacement situations in the Middle East: Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), Syria and Yemen. In the region there were around 3.9 million IDPs at the end of 2008, the highest number since IDMC started to monitor internal displacement in 1998; however the majority of this population had by 2008 been displaced for many years. Most of them had acute humanitarian and protection concerns, in particular the 470,000 or so displaced during 2008, principally by armed conflict in Iraq and Yemen.

Human rights violations, generalised violence, internal and international armed conflicts along political, religious and ethnic lines, as well as competition for land and other natural resources, are among the causes of internal displacement in the region.

Despite a security and humanitarian situation in Iraq that appeared to be stabilising, the numbers of displaced inside Iraq continued to increase to a total of 2,840,000 in 2008. Iraq remained one of the most unsafe countries in the world, despite a decrease in the number of recorded violent incidents.

The armed conflict in northern Yemen caused the displacement of over 100,000 people in 2008. The situation remained one of the year’s neglected crises despite the increase in the number of people displaced and the corresponding humanitarian needs. In OPT, the government of Israel continued to implement its policy of house demolitions in the West Bank, while in Tripoli, Lebanon, factional violence led to the temporary displacement of several thousand Lebanese.(...)

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