World is failing internally displaced people, Christian charity says

The number of internally displaced people has doubled in the two decades since the UN produced guidelines for nations on how to help them.

In 2016 alone the number of internally displaced people was the equivalent of one person being displaced every second.

Christian Aid is calling on world leaders to halt the rise.

Jane Backhurst, senior adviser on humanitarian policy and advocacy at Christian Aid tells Premier why the issue has been a priority for governments around the world.

Speaking on Premier’s News Hour, she explained: “Over the past year or two there’s been a lot of focus on the build up to the refugee and migrant compacts that will be the subject of major high-level conferences at the end of this year.

“We were hoping that internally displaced people would also be the subject of increased protections within those compacts but they’ve fallen out of the draft for those compacts.

“Given those increasing numbers… we really feel it’s time to turn attention to those people that are actually displaced inside their own country and not just those who had to flee outside and beyond their country’s borders which is the case for refugees and migrants.”

The number of internally displaced people has nearly doubled – increasing by 10 million in the past four years to over 40 million worldwide.

This week, the UN member states…