Abstract

According to the Office of the United Nations High the atrocities of violence and find safe haven, to be Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the number able to establish a livelihood and gain access to eco- of people both within countries and across borders nomic opportunities, and to join their kin elsewhere. who have been forcibly displaced due to persecu- All too often, however, displacement is strategically tion, armed conflict or violence has grown by more motivated and not simply a by-product of vio- than 50% in the past ten years. In 2007, there were lence. Armed combatants in conflicts in Colombia, 42.7 million forcibly displaced people, but this Sri Lanka, Uganda, Syria and many other countries number had risen to 68.5m by the end of 2017 – more have purposefully employed violence with a view than the population of France. towards clearing specific populations from a ter- Both refugee and internally displaced person ritory. By available estimates, this strategic use of (IDP) populations are now at record levels for the violence to displace has been employed in between post-Second World War period. One out of approxi- one-third and half of civil wars in the post-1945 mately 110 people on