1. Home
  2. Southern Africa
  3. Angola

Forced to flee

Children in a house damaged by typhoon, Maypon village in the Philippines Manoocher Deghati/IRIN
Every year, hundreds of thousands of people are forced to flee their homes to escape war or natural disasters. Displaced within their own country and having lost loved ones, livelihoods and belongings, they face terrible hardships.

Around the world there are as many as 70 million of them and their plight is largely forgotten.

To highlight this ongoing humanitarian catastrophe, IRIN Films has produced two short documentaries focusing on two very different communities, one in Africa and one in Asia.

In the first of these films, IRIN visits a small lakeside town in North Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, crowded by the arrival of thousands of displaced people seeking safety from fighting in the surrounding hills.

But even here the displaced are not safe. Women venturing out of town to farm their fields face rape, crossfire or brutal killing at the hands of armed gangs.

Watch DRC Film [18:10]
[Low] [Medium] [High]

Watch Philippines Film [15:15]

[Low] [Medium] [High]
 Film scripts
 IRIN's DRC page
 IRIN's Philippines page
Some of these people have already had to flee their homes more than once, and after the film was made, were forced to flee again, as the cycle of conflict, human rights violations and displacement goes on.

The second film shows the crushing human consequences for a relatively well-off family in the Philippines, after a typhoon and landslides wiped out their home and livelihood in the shadow of a volcano in Legaspi, Albay Province.

Even though the government is building them a new house, and life is peaceful and relatively safe, they are stranded far from their land, which is ruined for agriculture.

They have lost their self-sufficiency and are now mainly dependent on handouts to survive. The next generation will face a very different life with new risks and limited opportunities.

dg/cb

This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

Share this article

Get the day’s top headlines in your inbox every morning

Starting at just $5 a month, you can become a member of The New Humanitarian and receive our premium newsletter, DAWNS Digest.

DAWNS Digest has been the trusted essential morning read for global aid and foreign policy professionals for more than 10 years.

Government, media, global governance organisations, NGOs, academics, and more subscribe to DAWNS to receive the day’s top global headlines of news and analysis in their inboxes every weekday morning.

It’s the perfect way to start your day.

Become a member of The New Humanitarian today and you’ll automatically be subscribed to DAWNS Digest – free of charge.

Become a member of The New Humanitarian

Support our journalism and become more involved in our community. Help us deliver informative, accessible, independent journalism that you can trust and provides accountability to the millions of people affected by crises worldwide.

Join