Ellison McVicars | April 26, 2026

Every year, millions of people are internally displaced. Nearly every region of the globe is home to countless internally displaced people (IDPs), and yet only twenty-two countries have national laws regarding IDPs. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, an IDP is a person who has “been forced or obliged to flee or leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalised violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized state border.” Of the countries that are home to IDPs, Sudan, Syria, and Colombia have the highest populations of people internally displaced by conflict. Each of these countries has a unique cause for their large scale of internal displacement, and this blog analyzes each country’s approach to handling the crisis.

Sudan

Sudan has endured dozens of years of unrest following Anglo-Egyptian colonialism. The current conflict is the direct fallout of the second Sudanese civil war when Omar al-Bashir seized power during a coup in 1989. Bashir was in control when the Darfur conflict began in 2003, which was later deemed a genocide against non-Arab people by the International Criminal Court. He aggressively enforced a strict interpretation of sharia law and persecuted religious and ethnic minorities. Bashir’s reign came to an end in April 2019 when the Rapid Security Forces (RSF) successfully carried out a coup d’état. The RSF were originally supporters of and were supported by Bashir and committed extremely brutal crimes during the Darfur conflict. After the coup, Abdalla Hamdok was appointed prime minister, but his tenure was short and tumultuous and he was successfully ousted by another coup that placed militia leaders in control. This was followed by a series of protests demanding a return to civilian government that were answered with brutal retaliation. After the protests, Hamdok returned to office and then resigned in 2022. The fight among militia leaders, foreign influences, and subnational groups has plagued Sudan with a deadly power struggle. As of 2026, over twenty million people within Sudan are in need of health assistance, and twenty-one million require food aid. This conflict has led to the largest displacement crisis in the world, as over thirteen million people have been forced to flee their homes. 

Although they have the highest population of IDPs in the world, Sudan is the only country of the top three that does not have any formal legal framework directing the management of displaced people; they only have informal government policies instead of a national law. The Sudanese policy for IDPs was introduced in the Joint Statement by IGAD, UNHCR and the governments of South Sudan and Sudan on the Solutions Initiative for 7 million forcibly displaced people, October 2021. The joint statement describes the Solutions Initiatives, an activity of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development Support Platform that “seeks to galvanize international support towards the early recovery and longer-term peacebuilding and resilience needs of over seven million internally displaced people, refugees and returnees as well as their host communities.” The Sudanese strategy thus focuses on seeking support from international partners and stakeholders to supplant the fractured state’s lack of resources. 

Syria

The conflict in Syria began in March 2011, when the Syrian government swiftly and viciously responded to anti-government protests in the city of Daraa. This snowballed into a massive national movement which was violently suppressed by the government and launched the country into a civil war. That war has left over sixteen million people in need of humanitarian aid. The civil war ended in 2024 when the dictator Bashar al-Assad was ousted from office. However, displacement has continued, and people displaced due to the conflict still face uncertainty. Parts of southern Syria are facing new Israeli occupation. The rocky transition of power has allowed acts of revenge, and old tensions have arisen as some people are facing each other due to property disputes. Even after the war ended, between December 2024 to July 2025  430,000 people have since been displaced. Old conflicts between tribes have risen to the surface and boiled over in certain regions while other areas do not have time to catch their breath between periods of Israeli occupation. 

In 2016, three international non-governmental organizations collaborated to create a strong foundation for Syria’s framework addressing IDPs. This collaboration has increased the research on, policy development for, and management of IDPs in Syria. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre described the foundation as  “[f]ully adapted to Syria’s crisis, it has its own analytical framework for durable solutions based on … global references.” Over the past three years, Syria has begun work to establish their IDP legal framework. Several of the laws passed regulating IDPs by the Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa concerned only IDPs affected by natural disasters. One law that also applies to Syrians displaced by conflict is Legislative Decree No. 27, passed in 2024, which waives fines that would normally be dispersed for any late registration of civil events or issuance of documents. While these are steps in the right direction, it remains to be seen if there will be a more comprehensive emergent legal framework to manage displaced peoples. 

Colombia 

Significant internal displacement in Colombia is due to the conflict with and abuses perpetrated by armed non-state actors, most notably the National Liberation Army and the Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia. Backtracking to 2016, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the Colombian government reached a peace accord, which decreased violence in the country. However, violence has once again become frequent. Armed groups and criminal gangs, including the National Liberation Army and Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, have committed serious abuses such as the murder and rape of civilians, They have also placed strict restrictions on movement. Colombians have also fallen victim to their government, as public security forces attempt to retaliate and shut down protests. As a result, Colombians face one of the world’s highest rates of displacement due to violence from both armed non-state actors and government-sanctioned actions. The increase in affected peoples has acclerated as armed non-state actors attempt to expand their territories. As of November 2025, over seven million people have been displaced. 

Of these three countries, Colombia has the most extensive legal framework for IDPs, with many reforms taking place over the past several years. It is relevant to note that Colombia’s legal framework is unique as it approaches IDPs with the mindset that they are victims who have suffered an unremedied harm. IDP became a part of Colombia’s Victim’s Law framework in 2011. Two important reforms are Law 2343 of 2023 and Law 2421 of 2024. Law 2343 modified the deadlines under the Victims and Land Restitution Law; the modification allowed victims of armed conflicts to retain access to the guarantees of the original law past the initial expiration date. Those guarantees included IDPs the rights to truth, justice, reparation, and non-repetition. The UNHCR described that Law 2421 “introduced a number of changes and aimed to strengthen the coordination capacities of the national system of response to victims.” Columbia’s laws provide not only support for IDPs but ensure them rights. 

Conclusion 

Sudan, Syria, and Colombia have faced massive crises and an increasing IDP population. While the three countries have varying approaches to supporting IDPs, Colombia’s legal framework provides the most extensive support for IDPs and should be the model for IDP policy moving forward in Sudan and Syria. As Sudan builds their policies and laws surrounding IDPs, they should consider and integrate the structure that Colombia’s framework provides. Syria’s legal approach to IDPs is narrow in that it currently focuses on victims of natural disasters. Like Colombia, they should expand their laws to define people displaced by armed conflict as victims and provide them with the same support as people displaced by natural disasters. IDPs that are forced from their homes because of armed conflict are victims, and national policies should rightfully identify them as such, as Columbia has.