UN: over 500,000 people uprooted by conflict this year

More than half a million people have been uprooted by conflicts in the first five months of this year — the vast majority in Africa — and thousands of civilians have been killed from Darfur to Iraq, the U.N. humanitarian chief said Tuesday.

John Holmes told the United Nations Security Council that although peace is being consolidated in Ivory Coast, Nepal and East Timor and there have been some other positive developments, "millions of ordinary people are still trapped in the horror of war and conflict, hoping desperately to rise from the chaos that surrounds them into more peaceful times."

Holmes spoke at a daylong meeting of the council focusing on the protection of civilians in armed conflict, an issue that has produced four council resolutions but no real solution. A statement adopted by consensus and read at the end of Tuesday's meeting reaffirmed the council's commitment "to addressing the impact of armed conflict on civilians," including excessive use of force and sexual and gender-based violence.

Holmes stressed the "collective responsibility" of the U.N. and individual nations to prevent war, secure peace and protect civilians, citing varying degrees of progress.

Mediation in Kenya reduced post-election violence, he said, and the full deployment of peacekeepers in Chad, the Central African Republic and Darfur "has the potential to augment significantly efforts to protect and assist those caught in the turmoil of violence in the region."

"But the risks of deterioration are currently very great," Holmes warned, urging that the three missions receive all the required troops and resources.

He said in the first five months of the year, more than half a million people have been displaced by conflict, both within and across borders.

"In Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, Somalia and Sudan, over 337,000 civilians have been forced to flee violence this year, some of them not for the first time," he said.

In Congo, the fruits of a conference in January on peace, security and development are yet to be felt by those sheltering in camps and public buildings, including 175,000 people newly displaced this year.