Displacement can be induced by war, conflict, environmental disasters, and other natural and human-made hazards. The humanitarian response to forced displacement can be traced to the Eastern Mediterranean during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when forced deportations of Tartars, Kurds, and Assyrians were followed by the Armenian genocide that prompted the creation of the first professional, neutral, and non-denominational relief organizations (Watenpaugh 2015). This also included the creation of the first refugee camps catering for minority ethno-religious groups (White 2018). After World War II, more than 12 million people (McLaren 2010) were categorized as displaced persons, and the responsibility to aid them was assigned to the United Nations (UN) Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. The displacement of Palestinian refugees (1947–1948), was followed by the creation of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). UNRWA instituted a camp-based approach that would become an integral part of the humanitarian response to later displacement crises (Peteet 2005). The humanitarian response has been especially marked in sub-Saharan Africa, where the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) runs several refugee camps, criticized as being spaces under humanitarian government (Agier 2011), with the agency being seen as complicit with a strategy of humanitarian containment (Barnett 2001).
Although figures are uncertain, globally there are currently around 70 million forcibly displaced people–with internally displaced persons (IDPs) the largest group (40 million), followed by refugees (26 million) and asylum seekers (4 million). With many crises unresolved and protracted, almost three-quarters of the displaced hail from just five countries: Afghanistan, South Sudan, Myanmar, Somalia, and Syria ( UNHCR 2019). The Syrian displacement crisis (2012–present) is one of the largest, most complex and protracted humanitarian emergencies today, with more than 6 million Syrians displaced as refugees and IDPs. Large sections of the Syrian refugee population are confined indefinitely in what are conventionally considered fragile transit countries. Unable to resolve the displacement causes, host states and UN agencies are instead trying to deal with their consequences by instituting a developmental approach to displacement.
Refugees and IDPs are similarly displaced, and often for the same reasons and causes, but move to different destinations. Most of the world’s refugees have been IDPs before crossing national borders, but only refugees are under international legal protection (World Bank Group 2017). Current research on forced displacement shows that the magnitude, scale, and timing depend on conflict intensity, duration, and scale, as well as regime type and conflict outcomes. Migration routes, in turn, are influenced by security concerns, distance, and terrain type as well as information sourced through social networks and social media. Displacement is increasingly urban, with cities and towns becoming major sites of self-settled people, yet aid policies have not kept pace with this urban transformation. Indeed, the UNHCR has only recently begun reorienting its work away from camps and towards urban contexts (Crisp, Morris, and Refstie 2012).
Displacement is often followed by secondary migration to third countries. Mass displacement, such as the so-called European reception migration crisis (2014–2015), prompted EU member states to institute border closures, maritime surveillance, and new return agreements to curtail migrants’ mobility. Moreover, humanitarian aid is now accompanied by biometric registration measures that include iris and retina scans, which represent a shift towards a humanitarian securitization (Hoffmann 2017).
Disasters and climate change-related migrations are still less studied and understood than other forms of displacement, in particular as they combine with other factors such as poverty and persecution (Stapleton, Nadin, Watson, and Kellett 2017). The numbers, scale, and causes of climate-related displacements are all uncertain. Current estimates include between 18–25 million people affected by climate-related and other environmentally related hazards, with future projections reaching close to 150 million displaced by 2050 (Rigaud et al. 2018).
References
Agier, M. (2011) Managing the Undesirables: Refugee Camps and Humanitarian Government . Polity Press.
Barnett, M. (2001) Humanitarianism with a Sovereign Face: UNHCR in the Global Undertow. The International Migration Review, 35(1): 244–277.
Crisp, J. , Morris, T. , Refstie, H. (2012) Displacement in Urban Areas: New Challenges, New Partnerships. Disasters, 36: 23–42.
Hoffmann, S. (2017) Humanitarian Security in Jordan’s Azraq Camp. Security Dialogue, 48(2): 97–112.
McLaren, M. (2010) Out of the Huts Emerged a Settled People: Community-Building in West German Refugee Camps. German History, 28(1): 21–43.
Peteet, J. (2005) Landscape of Hope and Despair: Palestinian Refugee Camps. University of Pennsylvania Press.
Rigaud, K.K. et al. (2018) Groundswell. Preparing for Internal Climate Migration. The World Bank.
Stapleton, S.O. , Nadin, R. , Watson, C. , Kellett, J. (2017) Climate Change, Migration, and Displacement. Overseas Development Institute.
UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) (2019) Worldwide Displacement Tops 70 Million, UN Refugee Chief Urges Greater Solidarity in Response. www.unhcr.org.
Watenpaugh, K.D. (2015) Bread from Stones: The Middle East and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism. University of California Press.
White, B.T. (2018) Humans and Animals in a Refugee Camp: Baquba, Iraq, 1918–20. Journal of Refugee Studies, 32(2): 216–236.
World Bank Group (2017) Forcibly Displaced: Toward a Development Approach Supporting Refugees, the Internally Displaced, and Their Hosts. The World Bank.