U.N. report finds 46 million people internally displaced at end of ’19

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. children’s agency said Tuesday that an estimated 46 million people — 19 million of them children — were displaced by violence and conflict as of the end of last year but remained in their home country, and millions more were displaced by disasters.

Meanwhile, the Vatican says internal migrants should have the same legal protections as refugees and that their children should have the right to birth certificates, education and being reunited with their parents if separated.

A UNICEF report said there has been a steep increase in the number of internally displaced people as a result of conflict and violence, from 25 million a decade ago to more than 40 million in the past five years. And last year, more than 40% of the displaced were under the age of 18, it said.

“Millions of displaced children around the world are already going without proper care and protection,” UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said in a statement. “When new crises emerge, like the covid-19 pandemic, these children are especially vulnerable.”

Almost 33 million new displacements were recorded in 2019 — around 25 million because of natural disasters and 8.5 million because of conflict and violence, according to the report. That included 12 million children — 3.8 million displaced by conflict and violence, and 8.2 million by disasters linked mostly to weather-related events like flooding and storms, it said.

UNICEF said the coronavirus pandemic is making a critical situation for displaced children and families even worse this year.

The report, “Lost at Home,” says children who are displaced lack access to basic services and are at risk of exposure to violence, exploitation, abuse, trafficking, child labor, child marriage and family separation. It calls for strategic investments and a united effort from governments, civil society, the private sector, humanitarian groups and children themselves to tackle these issues.

The Vatican on Tuesday published a booklet of pastoral guidelines to care for internally displaced people.

Pope Francis has made the plight of refugees a hallmark of his papacy, calling for countries to welcome, protect, promote and integrate anyone who is forced to leave their homes. The new guidelines apply that appeal to internal migrants and lay out ways the Catholic Church can help through advocacy, education, aid and spiritual assistance.

The guidelines call for internal migrants to receive the same U.N.-sanctioned humanitarian protections as refugees, noting that the same forces, dangers and vulnerabilities are at play.

It says the church should advocate for family reunifications when children are separated from their parents. To avoid new generations of stateless children, it calls for the church to press governments to issue birth certificates for children of internal migrants. And it says the church itself can step in to issue its own forms of identification via school documents or baptismal certificates for Catholics.

Cardinal Michael Czerny, Francis’ top adviser on migration, presented the new guidelines Tuesday, noting they follow similar ones issued for the pastoral care of refugees and victims of human trafficking.

Amaya Valcarcel, international coordinator for the Jesuit Refugee Service, said the key problem about internally displaced people is their “invisibility,” and that outside aid groups often have difficulty reaching them because of government restrictions on access inside their own borders.