Internally Displaced People, 2nd Edition

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The Americas

Regional Overview

Although only 10 per cent of the world's internally displaced people (IDP) are found in Latin America, the number of persons internally displaced by conflict is by no means insignificant. By mid 2002, some 2.2 million persons were IDPs in the region – nearly four times the number of refugees. The large majority of these persons were found in Colombia, a country producing as many as 300,000 IDPs a year and considered one of the worst situations of internal displacement in the world. IDP populations were also present in Guatemala, Mexico and Peru.

With the notable exception of Colombia and, to some extent, Mexico, conflict in the Americas has, by and large, abated. While civil wars in Guatemala, El Salvador, ...