Internally displaced people, silent victims of the coronavirus pandemic

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Nearly 51 million internally displaced people worldwide, due to conflicts and disasters. It is unheard of according to the Observatory for situations of internal displacement. The majority are in Syria, Colombia, the DRC, Yemen and Afghanistan.

Publicity

With our correspondent in Geneva, Jérémie Lanche

Suspension of vaccination campaigns, slowdown in deliveries of equipment and food. The Observatory for Internal Displacement (IDMC) is concerned that these populations are the silent victims of the coronavirus pandemic, in particular because of the reduction in humanitarian aid.

The Covid-19 pandemic has already created a humanitarian aid crisis. The director of this observatory, Alexandra Bilak, fears for example the consequences of the closure of schools in IDP camps

“  Once again, we are concerned about our children who are not going to school at the moment. Imagine children who have been systematically dropped out of school due to years of war and who are now going to be dropped out of school because of the Covid, it has snowball effects  , ”she notes.

Refugee camps

And that is the long-term danger. In addition to the risk of seeing the virus spread in overcrowded camps like in Syria and Bangladesh. If humanitarians no longer have the means to maintain their programs for the displaced, the latter may well become completely invisible to the rest of the world.

“  If our partners are no longer able to do this work today, there will be no more statistics next year. So the situation is likely to change for the worse in the coming months. And yet our capacity on this will have diminished, and that scares me  , ”continues Alexandra Bilak.

And NGOs such as Doctors Without Borders (MSF) have already had to reduce their missions with displaced people in Nigeria and the DRC. The pandemic has even increased the number of displaced people in conflict regions, such as in the Sahel, where border closures for health reasons have prevented people from taking refuge in neighboring countries.

► Also read: Covid-19: what impact on conflict zones?

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• Coronavirus
• Refugees
• Syria
• Yemen

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