Internally Displaced Persons

Internally displaced people, or IDPs, are often wrongly called refugees. Unlike refugees, IDPs have not crossed an international border to find sanctuary but have remained inside their home countries. Even if they have fled for similar reasons as refugees (armed conflict, generalized violence, human rights violations), IDPs legally remain under the protection of their own government - even though that government might be the cause of their flight.

As citizens, they retain all of their rights and protection under both human rights and international humanitarian law.  At the end of 2008, there were an estimated 26 million IDPs around the world and UNHCR was helping about 14.4 million of them in 22 countries, including the three with the largest IDP populations - Sudan, Colombia and Iraq.