The number of people newly displaced within their own countries by conflict has sharply increased, according to a global survey released today by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre of the Norwegian Refugee Council. The report was issued ahead of an international conference on displacement of Iraqis in the Middle East which convenes in Geneva this week.

The total number of internally displaced people worldwide was nearly 25 million as of end-2006, the report says. This is about twice the number of refugees who have managed to cross an international border and are entitled to protection and assistance under the 1951 Refugee Convention. Internally displaced people fall under the protection of their governments, but in many cases it is these very governments who perpetrate forced displacement.

"Some 4 million people were internally displaced during 2006 as a result of armed conflict, more than twice as many as in the previous year", said Tomas Colin Archer, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council.

In Colombia, the conflict remains active and has caused the world’s second-largest internal displacement crisis after Sudan.

In the Americas, more than 3.8 million of the estimated 4.1 million internally displaced are in Colombia. It is also the only country in Latin America where civilians continue to be forced from their homes as the result of an internal armed conflict. In 2006, more than 200,000 Colombians were compelled to leave their homes because of the conflict.

Forced displacement of civilians is less a byproduct of fighting between armed groups than a military objective serving political and economic ends.

In Colombia, armed groups have forced millions of civilians from their homes, ostensibly to separate them from their armed enemies. Paramilitary groups have in many cases exploited this war strategy to expand their political, economic and territorial control. In the northwestern Chocó region, bordering Panama, paramilitary groups have displaced thousands of indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities to pave the way for projects such as a planned trans-oceanic canal, an inter-American highway, African palm plantations and logging.

While most of Latin America's civil wars have ended, the historical and structural injustices that triggered them and the forced displacements of millions of people remain largely unresolved.