During the year, the ICRC’s partnerships with National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies proved crucial in several countries. The National Societies often played a pivotal role in responding rapidly to needs or reaching people in remote regions.

Any protection and assistance strategy which aimed at preventing displacement of civilian populations or effectively addressing the needs of displaced persons and returnees had to remain flexible, so as to take into account the great diversity of situations in which displacement occurs. For example:

• Armed conflict with major humanitarian crises of a sudden and large-scale nature, such as the conflict in Darfur (Sudan), Chad, Sri Lanka, Lebanon which called for an urgent response and for strengthened coordination between the players involved in order to provide support for people already displaced and prevent others from suffering the same fate;
  
  
• Armed conflict in which security risks limited or prevented the large involvement of humanitarian organizations, such as those prevailing in Iraq or in Somalia, where aid activities have to be largely "remote-controlled" from abroad and implemented by local employees.
  
  
• Uprising of armed violence affecting civilian populations and provoking displacement of populations such as in Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Central African Republic, the Philippines, and Nigeria.
  
  
• Longstanding conflicts, such as those affecting certain regions of Colombia, of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in the northern Caucasus, in Uganda, Côte d'Ivoire, Myanmar, which have left an already fragile population in utter destitution, or where following displacement people have settled permanently where they are instead of returning home;
  
  
• “Frozen” conflicts and humanitarian needs in post-conflict situations, such as those in Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Georgia, Liberia, Congo, Nepal calling for the sustained presence of humanitarian agencies long after the peak of violence is past and for protection and assistance for both displaced persons and returnees;

In 2006 the ICRC supported, in one way or another and at least once, some 4 million internally displaced persons and returnees in 32 countries[1].

Africa: Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Liberia, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe. Asia and the Pacific: Afghanistan, Indonesia, Lao People Democratic Republic, Nepal, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, Solomon Island, Sri Lanka, Timor Leste. Europe and the Americas: Colombia, Georgia, Russian Federation, Serbia/Montenegro-Kosovo. Middle East and North Africa: Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen.

From January to May 2007, the ICRC has developed humanitarian activities in favour of some 2.9 million IDPs in 26 countries.

For further information on ICRC activities, please see the ICRC's 2006 Annual Report and ICRC's focus on War and displacement.

Note
1. These figures are updated figures since the publication of the Annual Report 2006 following the reception of additional field reports and do not include all the countries in which the ICRC conducted activities designed to restore family links and therefore do not cover all the individual cases handled (IDPs or returnees who sent or received family news, those located by the Red Cross/Red Crescent family news network at the request of their families and those transferred elsewhere or reunited with their families).