Rumble: Different Reading: Life Stories of the Less Lucky
The Internally Displacement Monitoring Center published a number of life stories from Columbian IDPs.
"IDP" is an acronym for Internally Displaced People, people "who have been forced to flee or to leave their homes, due to armed conflict violence, violations of human rights or disasters, but have not crossed an internationally recognised state border."
Call them "refugees within their own country".
Have a read. Should make most of us realize how lucky we are. Do we appreciate it enough?
Picture courtesy of IDPvoices.org
Peter. Flemish, European, aid worker, expeditioner, sailor, traveller, husband, father, friend, nutcase. Not necessarily in that order.
2 comments:
Don't know if you recall, but a big stink was made two years ago, after Katrina, when people from New Orleans lost their homes, and were referred to as "refugees." I guess, it was agreed by the politicians and mainstream media that the term "refugee" did not apply to them. I think we just call them "victims" now. I think they clarified "refugee" as someone fleeing their own country, while Katrina victims were not in that category.
Arguing about terminology, when they should be getting something done about the situation, is pretty much akin to total incompetence (or just a cover for it).
Hi Vagabondblogger,
Yeah, the people fleeing their homes due to Katrina, and re-locating somewhere else, are typically what we would call "IDP"s.
It is a bit weird though, as normally IDP's and certainly longerterm IDP's (Katrina was 2 years ago, right?) are a 'symptom' for poorer countries... I saw on TV this week that there are still scores of people in the South who have not been able to return to their home yet... (and that is 'South' like Louisiana, not Africa!)...
I think most humanitarian organisations would have been able to respond FAR better and faster to the Katrina emergency than FEMA and the US government did...
A real pity... I feel for the victims..
Peter
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