Much focus has been placed on the hundreds of thousands of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants who have put their lives at risk to reach European shores. Their bravery and despair has drawn much attention to the phenomenon of displacement. In reality though, they represent only the tip of an iceberg. Of those the Syrian conflict has uprooted, around 6.6 million people have been displaced internally. Away from the media glare and out of reach of humanitarian
agencies, many struggle to survive in subhuman conditions.

There are now twice as many internally displaced people (IDPs) as refugees worldwide. In some ways, the distinction between internal and crossborder flight is unhelpful in a globalised world. Large crises such as Syria should lead to a new
and more holistic thinking about displacement. A similar shift is needed in analysing the causes and consequences of displacement. We tend to think in terms of single, isolated triggers, but the reality is far more complex. Displacement
in Sudan ostensibly caused by conflict has been traced back to root causes such as drought and environmental degradation, and a food crisis that became a famine because of government neglect and changing regional demographics.

In Haiti, the establishment of overcrowded informal settlements and authorities’ inability to enforce building and safety standards formed the backdrop to the mass displacement caused by the 2010 earthquake. Such complexity has profound implications when it comes to preventing, responding to and resolving displacement. Failure to conduct a thorough assessment means responses will be fragmented at best and ineffective at worst.

Report by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre