AN ASSESSMENT OF CONFLICT-INDUCED INTERNAL DISPLACEMENT TRENDS AND SITUATIONS OF IDPS IN ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Internal displacement has emerged as one of the world's greatest human disasters today. IDMC 2023 statistics showedthat, there are approximately 77.1 million internally displaced persons. It causes death and property damage, foodinsecurity and starvation, family disruption, psychological and physical problems on IDPs. Hence, the objective of thisstudy was to examine the prevalence of conflict-induced internal displacement in Ethiopia from 2017 to 2023, andidentify the situations of IDPs housed in IDPs camps of North-western Ethiopia (Amhara region). The data wascollected from 415 surveyed IDPs, 14 interviewee and 8 key informants. The secondary sources i.e. published articlesand IDMC data were taken. Descriptive statistics and textual analysis were used to analyse the data.The result demonstrated that, a total of 670,999; 187,592, and 1,431,682 persons were displaced within the regions andwithin the country due to the escalation of conflict before 2018, during 2018, and in 2019 respectively. This shows thatan enormous tragedy also referred to as a human catastrophe occurred in the Ethiopian historic event in 2019, withabout 1.432 million people fleeing their homes because of inter-communal violence in the country. As a result of conflictand violence, more than 2.9 million people have been internally displaced in the country since 2020. Hence, from 2008to December 2021, the overall number of internal displaced people in Ethiopia was more than 5,142,000, whereas thetotal number of IDPs due to conflict is more than 3,589,000 as of the end of 2021. As of March 2022, an estimated5,582,000 people were internally displaced within Ethiopia as a result of armed conflict and disasters, with 2,848, 0001IDPs in the Amhara, Afar, and Tigray regions. Nearly 3.9 million people living in displacement because of conflict andviolence across Ethiopia at the end of 2022. Based on the findings, a significant number of displaced people housed inIDP camps did not have shelter, shortage of food and nonfood items, rare safe drinking water sources, high sicknessand death, limited sanitation, health and hygiene services. Additionally, IDPs did not have security protection, whichprevent them from physical and psychological harms, and did not receive any protective and resilient support fromgovernment to their survival in the dwelled camp sites. In conclusion, Ethiopia represented the highest proportion ofIDPs in the global displacement numbers. Conflict-induced displaced persons housed in the camps of Amhara regionare living in desperate conditions. Therefore, federal government of Ethiopia should work towards addressing thecauses of conflict and ethnic based violence, human rights protection, and political commitment with regionalgovernments on the issues of IDPs for durable solutions.