Comprehensive response to wave of displacement crises needed

ithin the last 12 months, the Philippines has experienced three major natural hazard-related disasters - typhoon Bopha in December 2012, the Bohol earthquake in October 2013 and typhoon Haiyan in November 2013. These three disasters and others have directly affected 23 million people and internally displaced as many as eight million. Nearly 1.4 million homes have been damaged or destroyed, and millions of livelihoods lost. As of early December 2013, it was estimated that around 4.5 were displaced throughout the country, most of them in Western and Eastern Visayas, the regions most affected by Haiyan. In Mindanao, despite significant progress in the peace negotiations between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) -the main Muslim rebel group-ongoing conflicts between the government and several other rebel groups, and clan-related violence, have continued to cause displacement, forcing nearly 200,000 people to flee their homes since January 2013. This includes an estimated 120,000 people who fled fighting in Zamboanga city in September 2013, of whom at least 72,000 are still displaced.