|
Internal Displacement in the Americas
 Download full Americas regional overview (521 kb)
 Download full Global overview (6.5 MB)
At the end of 2009, about five million people were internally displaced in the Americas. As in previous years, the growing number of IDPs in the region was due mostly to the ongoing displacement in Colombia, which brought it alongside Sudan as the country with the most IDPs in the world. Colombia’s displacement crisis also continued to have regional implications in 2009, as Colombians were forced across borders into neighbouring Ecuador, Venezuela, and Panama. New displacement was also reported in Mexico and Guatemala in 2009, as a result of the actions of drug cartels and gang-induced violence. In 2009, the Colombian government’s strategy against the country’s various armed groups suffered a number of setbacks following some successes in 2008, all of which led to further forced displacement. As in 2008, armed groups that had emerged after the demobilisation of paramilitary organisations in 2006 gained strength, and the widespread human rights abuses which these groups committed were an important cause of displacement in 2009. In addition, violence in urban areas, which appeared to be linked to these groups, increased in 2009 after a decline recorded in 2008.
Displacement continued to be caused by clashes between government forces and the leading rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC); between the FARC and a smaller rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN); and between these groups and the new post-demobilisation armed groups. People in rural areas were not only displaced by fighting but also by land seizures by all illegal armed groups perpetrated as a way to control territory and also to grow coca.
These continuing and new patterns of violence meant that Colombia may have had in 2009 an internally displaced population of as many as 4.9 million IDPs. The government took some steps to encourage their return, and reported around 30,000 returnees during the year; however this figure represented less than one per cent of the displaced population. Meanwhile, tensions with Ecuador were resolved in 2009, but relations with Venezuela worsened. Support to Colombian asylum seekers in these neighbouring countries varied: Ecuador implemented inclusive registration programmes, while in Venezuela asylum seekers were ignored at best.
In Mexico, it was reported in 2009 that thousands of people had fled Ciudad Juárez in Chihuahua State to escape widespread violence caused by drug gangs. It was not clear how many had been displaced, or how many had stayed in the country, as many of them had reportedly crossed the border into the United States. The situation of those uprooted within the country had not been evaluated.
In Guatemala, where conflict ended over a decade ago, the end of violence left many thousands of people internally displaced, most of them from indigenous communities or marginalised rural groups. These populations became increasingly invisible as they returned, settled in new locations or blended with impoverished non-displaced groups. It was unclear in 2009 whether they had attained durable solutions allowing them an equal enjoyment of rights. 12 years after the end of the conflict, little progress had been made in implementing the measures included in the peace accords to provide reparations for victims of human rights violations during the conflict.
An unprecedented food crisis hit Guatemala in late 2009, and the country had the highest rate of malnutrition among children under five in Latin America. Those whose vulnerability was enhanced by displacement in previous years were likely to be particularly affected. Furthermore, residents of impoverished city neighbourhoods continued to face intense gang violence which reportedly forced some to leave their homes.
In Peru, where armed conflict between government forces and the Shining Path and the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement ended in 2000, IDPs were like many other victims of violence still waiting in 2009 for reparations for the human rights violations and abuses they suffered in the conflict. There was no progress in 2009 in implementing a 2004 statute on internal displacement, which mandated the Ministry of Women a nd Social Development to register remaining IDPs so that they could access reparations. The number of people registered remained at a mere 5,000 of the 150,000 IDPs identified in 2007. Meanwhile, in 2009, a recalcitrant faction of the Shining Path carried out attacks and fought government forces in the northern region of Ayacucho, but there were no reports of displacement associated to these confrontations.
The Americas thus included situations ranging from new displacement through to very long-term protracted displacement. IDPs from conflicts that had ended years before, such as those in Guatemala and Peru, were still waiting for reparations and it was unclear whether some of them had achieved durable solutions; meanwhile large numbers continued to live in precarious situations, or to be newly uprooted in Colombia’s ongoing conflict, and to be displaced within cities across the region following the violent activities of criminal gangs.
|