Genocide, politicide and internal conflicts generated by state disintegration, ethnic tensions and the crisis of development are triggering new mass movements of people across the globe. In 1980 there were about 6 million refugees and 2 million internally displaced persons worldwide. By the end of 1995, the number of externally displaced had increased to 13.2 million, and the number of internally displaced had reached an estimated 30 million.

These figures do not tell the whole story, however, as many victims of forced displacement do not feature in these statistics. These include migrants who have been expelled en masse from their countries of residence and people who have been uprooted by development projects, among other causes. While it is difficult to provide accurate figures, there are probably more than 50 million people around the world who might be legitimately described as ‘displaced’. This figure means that one out of every 130 people on earth has been forced into flight.

No continent is now immune from the problem of mass displacement. Regarded for many years as a Third World phenomenon, significant refugee movements have taken place in recent years in the Balkans and throughout the former Soviet Union. At the end of 1995, refugee populations in excess of 10,000 could be found in over seventy different countries around the world.