There are currently several situations of internal displacement in Mexico. Possibly the largest has been caused since 2007 by the violence of drug cartels and the government’s military response. This has caused displacement in the states of Chihuahua, Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, Durango, Guerrero, Sinaloa and Michoacán.

This displacement has been little documented, and more comprehensive studies of its scale and impact are needed. Three cases of mass displacement reportedly caused the displacement of some 3,000 people; otherwise the violence has caused gradual displacement which has been reported only rarely. However, a research centre which documented displacement in Ciudad Juárez found that up to 220,000 people had left their place of residence in the area over three years as a result of the violence, of which about half reportedly remained in the country as IDPs. A private consultancy report cited by several media sources has suggested that the violence has internally displaced 1.6 million people in the last five years; however the report is not publicly available and the basis of the figure is unknown.

People fleeing drug-cartel violence have often not found security in their place of displacement. Another main challenge has been the physical and legal protection of their housing, land and property. Some IDPs have lost their identity documents as a result of their sudden displacement, and have subsequently been unable to access social services. While no proper assessments of IDPs’ access to basic necessities have been conducted, it has been generally assumed that they support themselves or rely on extended family networks.

The longest-running situation of displacement was caused by the Zapatista uprising in 1994 in the state of Chiapas. Indigenous communities that support the Zapatista movement have continued to be displaced and have also caused the displacement of people not aligned with the Zapatista movement, and recent estimates have suggested that between 9,000 and 24,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) remain in protracted displacement.

In Chiapas and in the neighbouring states of Oaxaca and Guerrero displacement has also been caused by religious tensions within indigenous communities. Meanwhile, in Oaxaca, indigenous triqui communities have also been displaced by attacks by paramilitary groups. IDPs in all these states have limited access to livelihoods, and there have been no initiatives to restitute their land.

The government has recognised and taken some steps to address the protracted displacement following the Zapatista uprising. The other smaller situations in Chiapas and its neighbouring states of Oaxaca and Guerrero have received much less attention. In this context, an internal displacement bill proposed in 2011 by the government of Chiapas, and a decision by the Mexican senate to provide more funds to support indigenous IDPs, have been notable developments. 

Around 100,400 people remain internally displaced as a result of the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Often invisible, internally displaced people (IDPs) survive on benefits and meager income earned through informal labour. They mostly live in private accommodation in unknown housing conditions, while a small percentage still live in substandard collective centres. Some continue to struggle to repossess their property while others are unable, or do not wish, to repossess their property or return. Roma IDPs are especially marginalised as they often lack documentation to access services and assert housing and property rights. In recent years, after focusing solely on promoting return, the government has taken measures to facilitate integration of IDPs.
 
Those who have returned face a series of challenges. Upon repossession of their property, some found secondary occupants in their homes and were ordered to pay high compensation for investments made by the occupants. Roma returnees have had difficulty repossessing their property since they often lacked the documents required. Many other returnees have had to reconstruct their homes without sufficient aid and little opportunity for employment. The education system in some return areas remains ethnically segregated, cementing divisions and preventing reconciliation. Some returnees seek to retain rights to access health care and benefits in their area of displacement when they are more advantageous. Physical attacks on returnees have decreased in recent years, but continue nevertheless.
 
In 2014, the worst floods and landslides on record seriously impacted work addressing internal displacement as a result of the 1992-1995 conflict, increasing the number of people in need of assistance. Many IDPs and returnees were displaced again and lost what they had managed to rebuild. In some cases this reignited past trauma. The authorities have an opportunity, while responding to the needs of the newly displaced, to also address structural long-term issues such as extreme poverty and social exclusion of those suffering from protracted displacement and those who have not achieved durable solutions. 

IDMC estimates that there were at least 263,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) in occupied Palestine as of September 2014. There are, however, no cumulative and confirmed figures for the territories - the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip – so estimates provide only a partial snapshot of the displacement that takes place as a result of human rights violations in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In July 2014, Israel launched a military operation codenamed Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip, which caused the biggest wave of displacement and the highest number of civilian casualties in the territory since 1967 (OCHA, July 2014). The number of people killed, injured and displaced rose exponentially during the second week of the operation, when it expanded into densely populated areas (ICRC, April 2014; OCHA, March 2014). Protective Edge and the devastating displacement it caused came at a time when the Gaza Strip was already on the brink of a humanitarian crisis as a consequence of Israel’s crippling seven-year blockade on basic goods and services, the severe movement restrictions it places on Palestinians and repeated fighting with Hamas.

Displacement has also taken place in 2014 in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, where wide-rang-ing Israeli policies and practices linked to the occupation and the increasing geographical fragmentation of Palestine continue to cause the systematic and definitive displacement of an increasing number of people (OCHA, March 2014). Against a backdrop of growing settler violence and human rights violations committed by the Israeli authorities, thousands more are at imminent risk of displacement as a result of the promotion and expansion of settlements, which are illegal under international law, and restrictive and discriminatory residency regulations and construction policies.

NGOs and observers continue to document and respond to violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, which constitute some of the major triggers of displacement, but the underlying causes of these abuses and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in general remain largely unaddressed (UNHRC, 2014). Palestine’s IDPs will only be able to achieve durable solutions to their displacement if a political solution to the 47-year old occupation is found, the blockade of the Gaza Strip is lifted and the culture of impunity for Israeli perpetrators of human rights violations ended.

The registration of internally displaced people (IDPs) can serve some useful functions. They include determining their number, location, demographic characteristics and protection concerns, preventing fraudulent access to limited assistance and facilitating the provision of temporary documents in place of missing identity cards. That said, registration is not necessarily required for such purposes and, as the case of Ukraine shows, neither is it a perfect tool. 

The Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) has a long history of displacement, both as a cause and consequence of the Israeli-Palestinian/Arab conflict over land and resources. Forced displacement has consistently followed Israeli policies intended to acquire land, redefine demographic boundaries and divest Palestinians of ownership guaranteed under international law. In other cases, internal displacement has directly resulted from violence stemming from incursions and human rights violations.

More than 160,000 people are reported to have been internally displaced over the past four decades. Since the second intifada or uprising in 2000, the number of Palestinians displaced or at risk of displacement has risen sharply. Some 90,000 people are currently reported to be at risk of displacement as a result of Israeli policies such as restrictive and discriminatory planning, the revocation of residency rights, the expansion of settlements and the construction of the West Bank Separation Wall.

Human rights and humanitarian organisations have long called for the issue of forced displacement in OPT to be addressed and have warned of the continuing impact of Israeli policies, but the international community has only in the last few years begun to respond to such calls.

Israeli policies continued to cause displacement in 2011 despite international condemna-tion. More than 1,180 Palestinians were displaced as a result of house demolitions across the West Bank and East Jerusalem from January 2010 to June 2011, while tens of thou-sands of internally displaced people (IDPs) in the Gaza Strip were still living in inadequate shelters, as the Israeli blockade in force since 2007 continued.

Internal displacement has been a frequent and significant part of Haiti’s history since its foundation in 1804. The current mix of inter-related causes includes frequent natural hazardinduced disasters, human rights violations, and large-scale development projects. These are dominated by the impacts of the major earthquake disaster of 12 January 2010, which displaced up to 2.3 million people, mostly from or within the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince. Over the last three years, more than 61,000 of these internally displaced people (IDPs) have been displaced again as a result of forced evictions and other threats. As of December 2012, 357,000 IDPs remain in camps or camp-like situations (also referred to as “camps”), while a lack of information makes the number of IDPs living outside these situations difficult to assess. This includes IDPs staying with host families, those who previously lived in the camps and those whose situation continues to put them at high risk of further displacement. 

During 2012, storm and flood disasters including Tropical Storm Sandy at the end of October have caused the new or repeated internal displacement of at least 58,000 people. Recurrent displacement has cumulative impacts on the vulnerability of people unable to fully recover between shocks felt not only by IDPs, but also by families or communities that host them. Storms and floods, further added to by drought, has left around 20 per cent of Haiti’s population or 2.1 million people suffering severe food insecurity - another likely driver of displacement (Haiti Humanitarian Action Plan 2013, 18 December 2012).

Established patterns of population movement between rural and urban areas, together with family and community networks and livelihood coping strategies centred on the capital, Port-au-Prince, play a significant role in determining IDPs’ movements and intentions. Within a context of widespread structural impoverishment, extreme environmental degradation, rapid urbanisation and weak government capacity, IDPs’ continue to face both immediate and new obstacles to their recovery related to their displacement. Durable solutions can only be achieved through the pursuit of long-term development goals led by central and local government and which place disaster risk reduction and human rights protection at their core. The current period of transition from international to government-led response is, therefore, critical.
 

The conflict in Ukraine has forced more than 417,000 people to flee their homes since March 2014. Given, however, that a centralised registration system for internally displaced people (IDPs) was only launched on 15 October and no single agency has a comprehensive overview of their number, the true figure could be twice as high. The vast majority have fled the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, and the remainder were displaced from Crimea. Women and children make up most of the displaced population, because many men stayed behind, either to protect property or because armed groups prevented them from leaving. Humanitarian corridors were established to ensure the safe passage of those fleeing, but they have been subject to shelling and fighting. There has been significant damage and destruction in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the current ceasefire remains fragile and displacement continues. 

The political instability and crimes against humanity that accompanied and followed the uprising which overthrew President Muammar Qadhafi in October 2011 drove tens of thou-sands into displacement. Those perceived to have supported Qadhafi or to have benefited from privileges he dispensed through tribal patronage networks were attacked in retaliation. They were often driven out of their cities, unable to return. Some 60,000 IDPs who had fled during the uprising were still living in protracted displacement by February 2015. 

Following the failure of political processes, Libya’s situation became increasingly anarchic, culminating in the collapse of a fragile central authority and the emergence of two rival centres of power in mid-2014. Against this backdrop, and ensuing infighting among myriads of militias, violence increased. There was more than a six-fold rise in the number of IDPs, reaching at least 400,000 by December 2014, some eight per cent of the population. Precise figures are not available given lack of access and on-going pervasive chaos.

IDPs’ basic needs for shelter, food and medical services remain grossly unmet. Their physical security has been seriously threatened by indiscriminate shelling, attacks on IDP camps and sieges that have prevented them from seeking security. The situation of tens of thousands of displaced migrants who remain trapped in Libya and are particularly vulnerable is a cause for serious concern.

State collapse and fragmentation of Libya’s essentially tribal society have hampered an effective national response to displacement and coordination of policies to address IDPs’ needs. Security constraints have forced international actors to operate from Tunisia since July and August of 2014. In this context of political chaos and on-going conflict, durable solutions appear ever more remote. Lack of coordination of relief and assistance is a crucial impediment to an effective response to the plight of IDPs. 

The number of internally displaced people (IDPs) in Kosovo has dropped slightly in recent years. A September 2012 estimate by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) put the figure at 17,900, compared with around 19,700 in 2009. Most ethnic Serb IDPs live in northern Kosovo, where they rely on a system of education, policing and health care services provided entirely by Serbia. Many others live in enclaves in areas where their ethnic group constitutes a majority, but where they often face restrictions on their freedom of movement and have little access to livelihoods and services.

For many internally displaced people, return to their place of origin is not a viable option after 13 years of displacement, and the prospects for durable solutions are limited. Many still face obstacles in obtaining personal and property documents from their places of origin, and in repossessing their property or getting compensation for it. Widespread discrimination against Serbs and Roma people has made it difficult for them to return to areas where they constitute a minority.
 
National and international actors have set up projects to facilitate the return and reintegration of people displaced both within and beyond Kosovo, to help members of minority communities improve their living conditions whether they are displaced or not, and to prevent further displacement.
 
That said, greater political and financial support for settlement options beyond return (local integration and settlement elsewhere) are needed if IDPs are to achieve durable solutions. Reliable data on IDPs should be collected and a comprehensive legal or policy framework for their protection established in order to respond adequately to their needs.
 

The armed conflict in Libya, which has led to the end of the 41-year rule of Muammar Qadhafi, has caused several waves of internal displacement. The repeated advances and retreats of both pro-Qadhafi and opposition forces left cities and villages deserted, with civilians increasingly bearing the impact of the combat. The death of Qadhafi in late October enabled Libya to enter a new phase of political reconstruction.

The total number of internally displaced people (IDPs) in late October was still uncertain. In late September, between 100,000 and 150,000 people were believed to be internally displaced. However, the fluidity of the situation, the limited access to areas of fighting and to in-country information sources, and the lack of comprehensive monitoring of IDP movements have made information difficult to verify.

Displacement in Libya has mainly taken place in urban areas, with most IDPs being accommodated with relatives, host families or in other sites such as public buildings. Despite the challenges their basic needs have generally been met.

In mid-October, ongoing hostilities in Sirte and Bani Walid, the strongholds of Qadhafi loyalists, were still causing new displacements. In other areas of both eastern and western Libya where fighting had subsided, the improvement in security had already allowed significant numbers of IDPs to return to their cities and towns. The fall of Sirte in late October gave hope that IDPs would be able to return there, too.

Nonetheless, concerns remain over the situation of certain displaced groups, including foreign nationals and those known to be loyal to the Qadhafi government.