Section: IDP Population Figures

Sub-section: Number of IDPs

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Displacement figures as of 2009 (Special Report, October 2009)

Determining reliable figures on the number of IDPs remains a huge challenge, both because the Mindanao displacement is characterised by tremendous fluidity with frequent population movements, and because of the incomplete collection of information, with some groups of IDPs not captured in government data (UNRC, 31 March 2009, p.1).

In May 2009, the government recognised that more than 750,000 people had been displaced during the previous nine months (DSWD, 15 May 2009). An additional 150,000 and 200,000 people are believed to have subsequently been displaced between May and July 2009, which would put the total number of people displaced since August 2008 at up to 950,000.

Table 2: Families displaced in Mindanao, September 2008–June 2009


Source: IOM, Mindanao Newsletter Issue No. 4, June 2009

As of the end of August 2009, based on data from the government’s National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC), an estimated 66,000 families, or between 330,000 and 400,000 people¹ remained displaced in Mindanao. The overwhelming majority of the displaced were located in ARMM, where 62,000 families were estimated displaced, most of them in Maguindanao Province. A further 3,800 families were reported to be still displaced in Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat Provinces and 260 families in Lanao del Norte Province (NDCC IDP Taskforce, 26 August 2009).

As of early September 2009, estimates of the total number of people displaced by conflict ranged between 233,000 (DSWD, 4 September 2009) and 271,000 (IOM, 4 September 2009), almost all of them located in Maguindanao province. Of these, only between 50,000 and 55,000 IDPs lived with host families and the majority were accomodated in various types of "sites", including evacuation centres and relocation sites. Other estimates were higher. At the end of September 2009, WFP estimated that 320,000 people remained displaced in Central Mindanao (UN Coordination Office, 25 September 2009).

These figures only included those registered for government assistance, either in recognised IDP sites known as “evacuation centres” or with host families. Various groups of IDPs were excluded, including those living in informal camps which the government had not recognised, an estimated 30,000 people who had been instructed by the government to move out of the camps in early 2009, but who had become displaced again elsewhere as they believed it too dangerous to return home. While some of these people had been resettled in “relocation sites”, often near the evacuation centres, many had dispersed across the region beyond the reach of any assistance and protection (UNRC, 17 March 2009, p.1). Since April 2009, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has worked together with the government to set up a Humanitarian Response and Monitoring System (HRMS). One of the main purposes of the database is to better track down mobile IDPs and other affected population and to assess their needs (IOM, 15 April 2009, p. 3).

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people have also been displaced by conflict between the AFP and the NPA, which remains active throughout the country, and by military operations against criminal groups such as the ASG in the island Provinces of Sulu and Basilan in Western Mindanao. Fighting there displaced at least 44,000 people from August 2008 to May 2009 (DSWD, 15 May 2009) and has intensified in recent months, resulting in an increase in IDP numbers (DPA, 22 September 2009). Since January 2009, more than 10,000 people have been reported displaced by military operations against the NPA, in seven separate incidents (DROMIC-DSWD website, accessed September 2009).

In addition to those displaced since August 2008, hundreds of thousands of people in Mindanao who were displaced during earlier phases of the conflict between the AFP and the MILF have been unable to find durable solutions, even though most were able to return to their areas of origin. Most returnees in Moro areas have faced the accumulated effects of conflict and displacement, which have continued to block the region’s economic development and further impoverish them. To escape poverty some have moved to urban areas of the region such as Cotabato City, where tens of thousands of displaced households have sought refuge since 2000 (Cotabato City, 19 January 2009). At the end of 2005, a joint needs assessment led by the World Bank estimated the number of IDPs in Mindanao at 930,000, most of whom had returned but not found durable solutions (Government of the Philippines, International Funding Agencies, Mindanao Stakeholders, December 2005, p.35).

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1. Government figures are based on an average of five people per family, but the average family size in Muslim Mindanao, where most IDPs are located, is closer to 6.5.
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