Crime in Mexico, Central America joins war in driving people from their homes
Crime in Mexico, Central America joins war in driving people from their homes
By John Zarocostas
McClatchy Foreign Staff
May 6, 2015
GENEVA — Eleven million men, women, and children – a rate equal to 30,000 each day – fled their homes in 2014 because of conflict and violence, bringing the total what diplomats call internally displaced people to a record 38 million, a report by the Norwegian Refugee Council found Thursday.
While the report underscored the millions of people who’ve fled well known conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, it also highlighted a much less publicized phenomenon – escalating criminal violence by gangs and drug cartels forcing hundreds of thousands to abandon their homes in Mexico and Central America.
“What we see is that good governance, diplomacy, political solutions, justice and security apparatuses are retreating, and armed brutal men are on the offensive, and civilians pay the price for that,” said Jan Egeland, secretary general of the council.
“We cannot continue like this,” he said. “It’s a sign of a world that has fundamental problems in protecting and defending the defenseless.
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