Albert, 22, holding his one-month-old daughter, Adriana, wanted to be a physician, but had to start working at a construction site because his mother needed medical care as a result of the displacement (photo: ©2009 Zalmai/UNHCR).

Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Half of the world’s 10.5 million official refugees now live in cities, according to the United Nation’s High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), António Guterres. And twice as many internally displaced persons and “returnees” who have come home from abroad following conflicts, are living in urban areas. Guterres’s statement was made ahead of the 9 December UNHCR annual meeting called the High Commissioner’s Dialogue, which this year will focus on “protection challenges in the context of urbanization.” The meeting is designed to underscore that while the rest of the world tends to think of refugees in terms of camps, the reality for many is very different.

The movement to cities of refugees and people displaced internally by conflict is in parallel with a general movement towards urban areas throughout the world, but it puts added strains on resources that are often already in short supply. Most live in overcrowded shantytowns with little or no health care or social services, the UNHCR says its experience on the ground shows. They are often reluctant to register and try to remain invisible for fear of deportation, and they get by as part of the informal economy, which leaves them open to exploitation, the Geneva-based organization says.

Yenis and Grimaldo still miss the home they were forced to flee in El Salado, northern Colombia, in 2000. “Now there is nothing in that place, only vegetation,” Grimaldo says. Here in Cartagena they rent three rooms, and one son has to sleep in a hammock because they can’t afford a bed (photo: ©2009 Zalmai/UNHCR).

The UNHCR notes that “the number of city-dwellers has grown fourfold over the last 60 years, from 730 million in 1950 to over 3.3 billion today. Eighty per cent of urban-dwellers will soon live in towns and cities of the developing world.”

Kabul in Afghanistan is estimated to have grown seven-fold since 2001, and Bogota in Colombia, Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire have both added hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons in the wake of internal conflicts.

Amman, Jordan and Damascus, Syria have also absorbed hundreds of thousands of Iranians.

Ed. note: Photographer Zalmai, whose extraordinary images of refugees are part of a close collaboration with the UNHCR, was born in Afghanistan, and he became a Swiss citizen in 1994. He is based in Geneva but travels extensively.

Links to other sites: UNHCR, Zalmai and Zalmai interview on UNHCR’s flickr pages

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