Article: Ned Colt, Stefano Gelmini, Dominique Tuohy, Photography: Ned Colt, Peter Biro/The IRC

They walk for miles in a long, single file across the Syrian Desert on a moonlit night, or sit crammed into the back of a rusty truck trundling across the parched grassland between Sudan and South. These are the stories of some of the refugees who, over the last few months, have been forced in their hundreds of thousands to leave their homes, their countries, and often their families, in order to escape violence or the threat of starvation, or both.

For Immediate Release - 5, April, 2012

The International Rescue Committee is scaling up health and nutrition programmes in Chad and dispatching emergency experts to Mali as millions of people in these countries and across the drought-ravaged Sahel region face a growing humanitarian disaster.

Erratic and meager rains, poor harvests, food shortages and high food prices have led to rising levels of malnutrition and hunger in countries across West and Central Africa.

JALALABAD, Afghanistan - Their faces are grizzled and deeply furrowed, even though the youngest of the eight is only in his early 30s. They greet me one by one, the shaking of my hand accompanied by the Arabic Muslim greeting “As-salam-aleikum.” They’ve kindly come to the International Rescue Committee office in the eastern Afghanistan city of Jalalabad to tell me of the experiences that led them to receive assistance from the IRC and how their lives have been since.

Nearly a year since more than three million people were displaced by military operations in north-west Pakistan, the crisis is far from over. More than 1.3 million people are displaced, dependent on emergency relief to survive, yet funding for the emergency response is drying up, according to a group of leading aid agencies working in the country.

Every year, the International Rescue Committee aids millions of people displaced by conflict and war. But environmental degradation around the world is creating a new category of people known as "environmental refugees." What's more, their ranks are growing rapidly. The UN estimates that some 50 million people worldwide could be on the move by 2010, seeking refuge from hunger, droughts and depleted soils - more than those displaced by war and political repression combined. Up to 250 million people could be displaced by climate-related disasters by 2050.

By Peter Biro

The International Rescue Committee is launching a programme that will deliver lifesaving emergency relief to over 200 conflict-affected villages in northwestern Pakistan. The project is funded by the US Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance. "People are returning to villages that have been damaged or destroyed by the fighting," said Mike Young, the IRC's Pakistan country representative. "The displaced, as well those who stayed behind, need extensive assistance in rebuilding their homes and infrastructure.

Even as thousands of displaced Pakistani families head home to the Swat district, thousands more are still fleeing violence elsewhere in the country's volatile northwest, according to IRC witnesses. "Last week the IRC saw around 10,000 people fleeing continued fighting in the northwestern Swat, Bajaur and Dir areas, streaming into one camp alone," said Mike Young, the IRC's Pakistan country representative. "They are all from areas the government confirms are dangerous due to ongoing army campaigns against the Taliban.

Thousands of displaced Pakistanis who fled a military offensive against the Taliban in the North-West Frontier Province began heading home this week after the Pakistani government announced the first stage of plans to return them. But for most people, returning back home is not an option. "The crisis is far from over," said Mike Young, the IRC’s Pakistan country representative. "Information about what conditions are like inside the return areas is patchy and confused. Some areas have experienced heavy destruction; others appear to be relatively unscathed.

An assessment by the International Rescue Committee of uprooted Pakistanis living outside the camp system in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province shows many are living in "appalling" conditions. "In my 15 years as a health care professional I’ve never seen conditions like this in Pakistan," said Dr. Balqias Khan, IRC health coordinator for Pakistan. "I was shocked by the appalling sanitary conditions surrounding IDPs (internally displaced people) squatting in schools.