
Advanced search

About Us

Countries

Training

Bangladesh

Country Page

New Documents

Sources

Links

Maps

Country Statistics

Latest IDP figure:

500,000
... Click here for more

Number of refugees:
(Originating from the country)

10,243 (UNHCR, June 2008)

Total Population:

141,82 million

28 March 2006

Minorities increasingly at risk of displacement

IDMC, 2006

Civil war and persecution of religious minorities have displaced hundreds of thousands of people in Bangladesh. The largest occurrence of conflict-induced displacement is found in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in south-east Bangladesh, traditionally inhabited by 13 different groups of indigenous people collectively referred to as “Jumma”. The root cause of displacement in the region derives from the politics of nation-building and ensuing conflicts between the minority and the majority population. Since Bangladesh’s independence in 1971, armed conflict between the tribal population and the government as well as a government-sponsored transmigration programme of Bengalis from the plains have forced large numbers to flee their homes.

Some 65,000 fled to India’s Tripura state and an even larger number were internally displaced. A peace accord signed in 1997 enabled the refugees to be repatriated, but thousands of IDPs and returning refugees remain displaced due to unresolved issues related to land and property restitution. The peace accord includes mechanisms to address internal displacement, but a task force to rehabilitate the displaced and a land commission to settle land disputes have never functioned effectively. The core issues of contention revolve around land ownership and disagreement about whether Bengali settlers should be counted as IDPs. No recent estimates of the number of IDPs are available. Existing figures from 2000 vary between 60,000 (Amnesty International) and 500,000 (Government Task Force).

Read full Report (html / pdf)

Expand all