Collateral Damage: Internal Displacement in the Americas

A report by the international Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).

While news articles have been published on people fleeing the drug violence of northern Mexico, this is the first systematic analysis we have seen of the rise of displaced persons resulting from the drug war.

According to its website, the IDMC is "the leading international body monitoring conflict-induced internal displacement worldwide. Through its work, the Centre contributes to improving national and international capacities to protect and assist the millions of people around the globe who have been displaced within their own country as a result of conflicts or human rights violations."

IDMC | Internal Displacement in the Americas: "By the end of 2010, as many as 5.4 million people were internally displaced due to armed conflict, violence, and human rights violations in the Americas. This figure was roughly 400,000 higher than a year earlier, confirming a pattern of internal displacement steadily increasing over the last decade. In 2001, there were 2.5 million IDPs in Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru.

This increase in the number of IDPs in 2010 reflected the continued new displacement in Colombia and new displace- ment in Mexico...

In Mexico, the government has not made efforts to establish the number of people still displaced by the 1990s Zapatista uprising, by inter- communal violence or more recently by drug-cartel violence in northern states.

Causes of displacement:

In 2010, new displacement in the Americas was principally caused by growing violence between groups associated with the drugs trade....

Drug-cartel and gang violence caused displacement in Mexico and Guatemala. In Mexico, violence grew sharply in areas close to the border with the United States, particularly in Chihuahua and Tamaulipas States, as drug cartels fought to control trafficking routes. The violence killed roughly 15,000 people there in 2010, including gang members, police, and civilians not related to the drug trade.

The government did not compile figures of people displaced by the violence, but independent surveys put their number at around 230,000. An estimated half of those displaced crossed the border into the United States, which would leave about 115,000 people internally displaced, most likely in the States of Chihuahua, Durango, Coahuila and Veracruz."