Climate change and internal displacement 2011, para. 30

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Paragraph text: A distinction should be drawn between sudden-onset and slow-onset events since they affect human mobility in different ways. Slow-onset disasters tend to prompt movements of people to other locations in search of livelihoods, food security and safety - a trend already being manifested in different parts of the world. In this context, regional particularities around displacement patterns and their various causes will be important to monitor and understand. This is particularly the case in Africa and Asia, as climate change is expected to have especially dire effects on developing countries, and the most vulnerable populations within them. At the time of writing of this report, an estimated 12 million people in the Horn of Africa required immediate humanitarian assistance owing to drought and food insecurity affecting, inter alia, Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Djibouti. In Somalia, successive drought-induced crop failures, spiralling food prices and lack of food assistance, combined with conflict, insecurity and limited access by humanitarian organizations, have resulted in one of the worst famines in decades, placing 3.7 million people in need of urgent assistance and causing large-scale displacements.

Body: Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons

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Person(s) affected

Reference: SR Internally Displaced Persons, Report to the UNGA (2011), A/66/285, para. 30.