2.4m people ‘internally displaced’ in India

United Nations, May 22

Nearly 2.4 million people in India were internally displaced due to conflict, violence and disasters in 2016, the third highest number globally, a new report by a monitoring centre said.

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre and the Norwegian Refugee Council released a new report which ranked India third among countries most affected by displacement related to disasters followed by China and the Philippines.

It said that conflict, violence and disasters caused 31.1 million new internal displacements in 2016.

“In 2016, one person every second was forced to flee their home inside their own country. Internally displaced people now outnumber refugees by two to one. It is urgent to put internal displacement back on the global agenda,” said Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the NRC.

The highest displacements were recorded in China with 7.4 million people getting impacted, followed by the Philippines (5.9 million), India (2.4 million) and Indonesia (1.2 million). The figures for India include 796,000 people displaced as a result of conflict and violence.

The report added that 3.6 million new displacements in South Asia in 2016 represented a drop of more than half from the 2015 figure of 7.9 million. Sixty-seven per cent, or 2.4 million, were in India, most of them associated with monsoon season floods in Bihar that led to more than 1.6 million displacements between mid-July and October. It said while China, the Philippines and India have the highest absolute numbers, small island states suffer disproportionally once population size is taken into account.

Further, as in the US, the size and density of populations exposed to hazards in India, China and Bangladesh results in high displacement risk, but it is pushed higher still by the numbers of people living in substandard buildings and with less resources to cope, which makes them more vulnerable. Of the 6.9 million new internal displacements caused by conflict in 2016, 2.6 million took place in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the Global Report on Internal Displacement. — PTI

Third after China, Philippines: Report

• A report has ranked India third among nations most affected by displacement after China and the Philippines
• Most of the displacements are associated with monsoon season floods in Bihar that led to more than 1.6 m displacements between mid-July and October, 2016
• 796,000 people have been displaced because of conflict, violence