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Number of internally displaced people hits record due to war, climate change

A displaced girl carries a bottle of water she filled from nearby stranded flood-waters, as her family takes refuge in a camp, in Sehwan, Pakistan, on 30th September, 2022

Geneva, SwitzerlandReuters The number of internally displaced people reached a record 71.1 million worldwide last year due to conflicts such as the war in Ukraine and climate calamities like the monsoon floods in Pakistan, according to data published on Thursday. The Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre said that figure represented a 20 per cent increase […]

Food charity production line caters for displaced in Ukraine’s Dnipro

Ukraine Dnipro World Central Kitchen1

Dnipiro, Ukraine Reuters Alla Dubovyk, a single mother of six, is among thousands of Ukrainians who have been receiving meal packages from the charity set up by businessman Vladyslav Shtipelman and the World Central Kitchen in Dnipro since the Russian invasion started. “Unfortunately, we, Ukrainians, have been brought to a situation where we have to […]

Record 79.5 million displaced at year-end despite COVID slowing exodus – UN

Greece refugee protests

Geneva, SwitzerlandReuters Nearly 80 million people worldwide, or one per cent of humanity, were uprooted at the end of 2019 after fleeing wars or persecution, a record figure capping a “tumultuous” decade of displacement, the United Nations said on Thursday. The figure rose by some nine million from a year earlier and is close to […]

Red Cross fears coronavirus spreading silently in Somalia’s displaced camps

Somalia IDPs

Nairobi, Kenya/Garowe, SomaliaThomson Reuters Foundation The new coronavirus could be spreading undetected through camps across Somalia hosting some 2.6 million displaced people, the Red Cross warned on Tuesday, as floods and conflict swelled the numbers fleeing into overcrowded settlements.  Almost 500,000 people have been forced from their homes by recent floods in central Somalia, the […]

First war, now COVID-19 threatens South Sudanese in crowded camp

Nairobi, KenyaThomson Reuters Foundation Thousands of war-hit people sheltering in an overcrowded camp in South Sudan now risk contracting COVID-19, charities said on Thursday after the first two cases surfaced. Add to that the challenge of enforcing social distancing in such cramped quarters, and aid workers fear many more deaths are inevitable after years of […]

Pope Francis and the Vatican commit to aiding internally displaced people

Somalia Sayidka Camp

RNS A record-breaking 50 million people in 2019 were internally displaced, or refugees within their own country, according to a recent study. Pope Francis and the Vatican championed their cause on Tuesday, with new guidelines for Catholic dioceses and parishes. “In this time of pandemic, the virus does not seem to distinguish between those who are […]