Internal Refugees. There are some 25 million persons worldwide forcibly displaced from their homes by civil wars, internal strife, or gross violations of human rights - but who remain within their own countries. Were they to cross a border, many would have claim to protection and assistance by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. But the internally displaced have no such rights and the international community is under no legal obligation to help them. While the UNHCR has been involved in programs for internally displaced people as well as for refugees, the agency can only act to help these people at the request of the U.N. Secretary General and with the consent of the government of the country involved. Exodus Within Borders: An Introduction to the Crisis of Internal Displacement, by David Korn, is published by the Brookings Institution.

By Brookings Institution, US.

Humanitarian Intervention Policy Resource.