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UN chief hopes to see number of internally displaced worldwide cut by half in 15 years

Xinhua, February 24, 2016 Adjust font size:

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday expressed his hope that world leaders will commit at the World Humanitarian Summit in May to reducing internal displacement across the globe by at least 50 percent by 2030.

He made the remarks while visiting a camp of internally displaced people (IDPs) in Goma in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters here.

Visiting a camp of IDPs, Ban was deeply moved by what he saw and heard. "He stressed that the number of displaced people has never been higher and that the international community needs to improve the way humanitarian assistance and development support are provided to ensure that no one is left behind," said Dujarric.

"This will be one of the main objectives of the World Humanitarian Summit he is convening in Istanbul in May," the spokesman said, referring to the first such summit in the UN history which is to be held in Turkey.

Ban said that at this event, he hoped that world leaders will commit to reducing internal displacement by at least 50 percent by 2030, the spokesman said.

The secretary-general left Burundi on Tuesday for the DRC on the second leg of his Africa tour, which also takes him to South Sudan.

The growing number of refugees around the world is overshadowed by the even greater numbers of internally displaced people, who have not crossed an international border in search of shelter and safety.

As of the end of 2014, a record-breaking 38 million people were forcibly displaced within their own country by violence, up from 33.3 million for 2013. A massive 11 million of these IDPs were newly uprooted during 2014, equal to 30,000 people a day, reports said.

In mid-2014, the UN refugee agency was caring for around 26 million of the world's IDP population at that time. Like refugees, they were forcibly displaced by conflict, generalized violence and human rights violations. UN Refugee Agency helps IDPs as part of a wider intervention by the international community.

It is reported that the majority of the increase in new displacement during 2014 was the result of protracted crises in the DRC, Iraq, Nigeria, South Sudan and Syria. The five countries accounted for 60 percent of new displacement worldwide. Enditem