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In search of refuge
Mapping forced displacement from 1951 to 2020
The current worldwide refugee crisis is often referred to as the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the number of forcibly displaced persons passed the threshold of 60 million people in 2015, and the numbers have continued to rise ever since. While stories of the crisis are ubiquitous in the news, the discussion around the refugee crisis is often clouded by partisanship and misinformation. By mapping and analyzing data from an authoritative source, we can begin to understand what is happening in our world and break down the barriers that are created by dishonest discussions about humans seeking refuge.
The UNHCR began collecting data on displaced persons – including refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons, and stateless persons – in 1951. Their data has shown a new record high almost every year since 2006, with one of the sharpest increases happening from 2018 to 2019.
While these numbers are striking, they do not tell the stories of the places forcibly displaced persons are living or their movement in their search for refuge. To learn more we have to dig deeper into the data.
2020: A new record
"Many refugee-hosting States, particularly those neighbouring conflict zones, keep their borders open and generously host thousands – sometimes millions – of refugees."— Filippo Grandi, Statement to the United Nations Security Council, November 2, 2017
In 2020 there were record numbers of displaced persons worldwide. The countries with the highest total numbers were Syria and Colombia. A comparison between those two countries can help us understand more about the trends in movement of forcibly displaced persons.
Countries with the most persons of concern in 2020
Syrian Civil War: 2011 to present
Syria has been ravaged by civil war since 2011, when a series of pro-democracy protests, part of the Arab Spring, were met with armed resistance from government forces.
Destruction in Aleppo, Syria. © UNHCR/Antwan Chnkdji
As the civil war raged on, Syria quickly became the central focus of the world-wide refugee crisis.
In 2020, millions of refugees from Syria were living in countries like Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and Germany. However, the largest group of persons of concern remained within Syria.
Click on the bubbles to see the movement of persons of concern to each country.
With the exception of Germany, the countries of residence that Syrians chose most often share a border with Syria, which indicates that proximity is an important factor in the pattern of movement for Syrians.
Colombian conflict: 1964 to present
Conflict between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a left-wing guerilla group, has been causing forced displacement in Colombia since the 1960s.
Children walking in Nueva Esperanza (New Hope), a settlement for internally displaced persons. ©UNHCR/Ruben Salgado Escudero
The majority of displaced persons are indigenous peoples or Afro-Colombians who were forced from their rural homelands and settled in urban areas, rather than internally displaced persons camps.
The number of displaced people has increased sharply since the early 2000s. Colombia has consistently had one of the highest numbers of persons of concern since 2002, and the number of displaced persons from Colombia passed 9 million in 2020.
Like with Syria, the largest group of persons of concern from Colombia in 2020 remained in Colombia as internally displaced persons.
Click on the bubbles to see the movement of persons of concern to each country.
After Colombia, the top countries of residence are Ecuador, Venezuela, Spain, and the United States. This pattern is similar to the one from Syria, with the majority of Colombians remaining in or near Colombia. The number of persons of concern residing in Spain and the United States is relatively small compared to the number in Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador.
Most of the discussions around displaced persons in the media focus on refugees and asylum seekers. However, given the data for both Syria and Colombia, it's worth taking a closer look at internally displaced persons to gain a deeper understanding of displaced persons remaining within their country's borders.
Internally displaced persons
Internally displaced persons (people who are forcibly displaced within their country of origin) make up a significant number of persons of concern in both Syria and Colombia.
Approximately 53% of the persons of concern from Syria are internally displaced.
In Colombia, internally displaced persons make up 84% of the persons of concern.
Internally displaced persons are not granted a protected legal status that is provided to refugees, and often end up living in urban areas and informal settlements with little to no support. Despite the frequency of internal displacement, the causes and scale are not well understood due in part to the complexity of data collection for IDPs. The lack of data and international attention forces IDPs into a state of invisible displacement. In many ways, IDPs have becoming the forgotten side of the larger global humanitarian crisis we often associate with refugees and asylum seekers. The data from the UNHCR gives us some information about the scale of internal displacement, but more data is needed at a national level before we can begin to understand the movements of internally displaced persons.
Comparing Syria and Colombia gives us information about the movement of displaced persons in long term civil wars. Next, we will compare three ethnic conflicts to determine how the movements of displaced persons are affected by targeted violence against civilians of certain ethnic groups.
Ethnic conflict
Genocide and ethnic cleansing are unique compared to other types of conflict because of the extreme danger to civilians in the persecuted group. As a result, the patterns of movement caused by a genocide can be different from other types of conflict.
One of the most recent examples of ethnic cleansing is the ongoing violence against Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state, Myanmar. The movements of Rohingya refugees can be analyzed on their own, as well as within the context of past ethnic conflicts, such as the Rwandan and Bosnian genocides.
Myanmar: 2017 to present
"Nowhere is the link between statelessness and displacement more evident than with the Rohingya community of Myanmar, for whom denial of citizenship is a key aspect of the discrimination and exclusion that have shaped their plight for decades."— Filippo Grandi, Opening statement at the 68th session of the Executive Committee of the High Commissioner’s Programme, October 2, 2017
In 2017, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called the violence against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar a " textbook example of ethnic cleansing ."
The conflict began in August, 2017, when Myanmar's military forces began attacking Rohingya civilians in Rakhine State. Within months, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya had fled to neighboring Bangladesh.
The number of displaced persons within Myanmar in 2015 is high relative to the other countries of residence. By 2017, the largest number of displaced persons changed to Bangladesh, indicating a move from internally displaced persons to refugees.
Select the dates on the right to see how the movement of refugees changed in the lead up to the conflict.
In fact, the number of internally displaced persons remained relatively constant from 2015 to 2017, whereas the number of refugees increased substantially after the conflict began in 2017.
Unlike Syria and Colombia, the conflict in Myanmar resulted in substantially more refugees than internally displaced persons.
Rwandan Genocide: 1994
"Still, at its heart the Rwandan story is the story of the failure of humanity to heed a call for help from an endangered people."— Roméo Dallaire, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda
The Rwandan genocide took place against the Tutsi minority in 1994. The entire conflict took place during an approximately 100-day period from April to July, 1994. Up to 1 million Rwandans are estimated to have died during the conflict.
Like the genocide in Myanmar, the Rwandan genocide was perpetrated by government-backed forces against the minority population.
The number of countries of residence for displaced persons increased in the years before, during, and after the Rwandan genocide. The only year when displaced persons remained within Rwanda was in 1994, the year of the genocide. However, the vast majority of displaced persons in all years left Rwanda for a neighboring country.
Select the dates on the right to see how the movement of refugees changed before, during, and after the conflict.
The total number of displaced persons from Rwanda jumped by more than 3 million in the year of the genocide.
The largest group in 1994 were refugees, but there is also a large number of returned refugees, meaning people who had refugee status but returned to their country of origin.
The number of returned refugees is different than what was seen in Myanmar, where the conflict is ongoing. The length of the conflict on Rwanda, which took place over a 3-month period, allowed refugees to leave the country and return all within the same year.
Bosnian Genocide: 1995
"But on the ground [in Bosnia] it was blindingly obvious that behind every victim there was a name, a story, a universe of relations forever lost, unspeakable tragedy that no statistic could ever capture." — Payam Akhavan, In Search of a Better World: A Human Rights Odyssey
The Bosnian war began in 1992, after Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from the former Yugoslavia.
The genocide was committed against Muslims and Croats in 1995, the final year of the Bosnian war, although there was evidence of ethnic cleansing being committed throughout the war from 1992 to 1995.
The data for displaced persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina begins in 1992, the year that Bosnia declared independence from Yugoslavia and the year the Bosnian war began. The movement of displaced persons increased throughout the war and in the aftermath. In the beginning, displaced persons settled mainly in nearby countries. After the war ended, larger numbers of displaced Bosnians began settling further away.
Select the dates on the right to see how the movement of refugees changed throughout and after the conflict.
The number of displaced persons from Bosnia increased sharply from 1992 to 1994, but decreased slightly in 1995, the year that the Bosnian genocide was considered to have taken place.
Despite the slight decrease in total displaced persons after 1994, the number of refugees increased from 1995 to 1996, whereas the number of internally displaced persons decreased. These changes could be caused by the increased danger for Muslims and Croats inside Bosnia in 1995.
The patterns of movement are very different in the Bosnian genocide than in the Rwandan genocide. Where the Rwandan genocide saw a drastic increase in the number of refugees and returned refugees in the year of the genocide, the sieges in the Bosnian War created a consistently high number of internally displaced persons in the years preceding the genocide. Only in the final year of the war did the number of refugees surpass the number of internally displaced persons within Bosnia.
The conflict in Myanmar shares more similarities with Bosnia than with Rwanda in terms of both the immediate lead up and the length of the conflict. In Myanmar, the number of stateless persons was high leading up to the beginning of the genocide, when the number of refugees increased and surpassed stateless persons. The pattern is similar to the one seen in Bosnia and Herzegovina with internally displaced persons from 1993 to 1995. Given these similarities, we could expect the pattern of movement for Rohingya refugees over the next several years, including the eventual return to Rakhine state, to resemble the movement from the Bosnia, rather than Rwanda.
Conclusion
Displacement can take many forms; while the focus in the media tends to be on refugees and asylum seekers attempting to settle in western countries, the vast majority of displaced persons are internally displaced or living with thousands or millions of other refugees in their neighboring countries.
While the trend of internal displacement is common, the type of conflict, such as ethnic cleansing or genocide, can cause an increase in refugees as the persecuted group looks for safety outside their borders.
Data alone cannot tell the full story of the humanity of displaced persons; however, using data to gain a deeper understanding of our world can help us to view displacement from a place of truth and compassion, rather than distrust. It is my hope that, by sharing this story, we can begin to look at the geography of displacement beyond our own borders to see the full story of the causes and conflicts of forced migration, and the humanity inherent in all persons searching for refuge.
See for yourself
Go further into the analysis with the Understanding the Refugee Crisis with Link Analysis lesson from Learn ArcGIS.
Learn more about the refugee crisis by visiting www.unhcr.org .
Acknowledgements
Thank you to the UNHCR for permission to use their photos for this story.
All analysis was performed using ArcGIS Insights .