Global Crises Compound Refugees' Woes: UN

The global financial, food, and fuel crises and the negative impacts of climate change pose a severe threat to the world's 37 million uprooted people, and will likely increase their numbers, warned the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Monday.

"Competition for scarce resources has become an increasingly important factor in provoking and perpetuating violence," said Antonio Guterres, addressing delegates from the UNHCR's 76-nation governing committee. As a result, the number of people forced to flee their homes is on the rise.

At the end of 2007, 11.4 million people were living as refugees and 26 million were displaced within their own country -- known as internally displaced people, or IDPs.

These latest figures mark the second straight year of increases after a five-year decline in the number of uprooted people around the world.

The underlying causes for the alarming trend in displacement range "from multiple new conflict-related emergencies in world hotspots to bad governance, climate-induced environmental degradation that increases competition for scarce resources, and extreme price hikes that have hit the poor the hardest and are generating instability in many places," said Guterres.

A doubling of world prices of staple foods such as rice and wheat has had a particular impact on refugees and IDPs, who leave behind most of their material possessions but also farms, small businesses, or jobs when they flee conflict or environmental disasters.

This July, hundreds of refugees from Cote d'Ivoire living in Guinea's capital asked to relocate to a United Nations-run refugee camp "to escape their precarious situation in Conakry, where they found serious difficulties in feeding themselves and finding accommodation," according to the UNHCR's spokesperson in Guinea.

"We are confronted with a series of interlinked conflicts in an arc of crisis that stretches from Southwest Asia to the Middle East and the Horn of Africa. Some of them are deepening, with important implications for global security," said Guterres.

Indeed, this new and complex constellation of violence has directly affected the United Nations' work with refugees and displaced people.

UNHCR funds used to address emergencies more than doubled from 2006 to 2007, and this year's expected $150 million budget for emergencies marks another significant leap from last year's $87 million.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has one of the highest numbers of IDPs in the world and it is also the site of one of the worst and least recognized humanitarian crises.

A group of 83 aid agencies and human rights groups recently called for immediate action to improve security and humanitarian assistance for civilians in Congo after renewed fighting displaced an additional 100,000 people in the eastern part of the country.

An estimated 1.2 million Congolese have been uprooted by the conflict, which the nonprofit International Rescue Committee has classified "the world's deadliest documented conflict since World War II."

However, financial constraints and safety precautions preclude sometimes even the most basic of humanitarian aid from reaching many of those who've fled their homes.

This has also been the case in Somalia, where 1.1 million people are displaced and almost half the population requires urgent assistance due to ongoing conflict and resource shortages.

In July, the Germany-based charity Bread for the World cut back operations in Somalia and the United Nations Development Program withdrew staff from the country amid rising safety concerns for their employees.

Concluding that "a hungry man is an angry man," Guterres cautioned the international community can either meet the basic needs of the world's poor -- many of whom are refugees or IDPs -- or "expect more social and political turmoil in the years to come."


Climate Refugees a Growing Concern

******CONTINUES