DAKAR, 29 September 2008 (IRIN) – People who flee to cities because of conflicts or natural disasters tend to become invisible to the authorities and organisations that can help them, says US-based Tufts University and the Geneva-based International Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).
The IDMC and Tufts University researched the protection needs of displaced people in Sudan’s Khartoum, Colombia’s Santa Marta, and Abidjan in Cote d’Ivoire.
Lost in the crowd
As opposed to rural displacements in which communities are more likely to move in groups, “people often arrive in individual [family] units and can become lost.many of them will not have friends or family connections, and will not know where to go,” said urban risk lecturer Dr. Mark Pelling of King’s College in London. “As a result, they can become invisible to those in power,” said Pelling.
