Perspective Chapter: Armed Conflict and Its Impact on Human Migration – The Healthcare Perspective

Abstract

Armed conflict can result in loss of human life, displace people, and violate human rights. While human migration often results from various causes like the search for food and shelter, armed conflicts also cause migration. Most armed conflicts stem from bad governance and religious radicalism. With bad governance, revendication from the marginalised often results in severe opposite repression from the state instead of dialogue. Migration from armed conflict imposes a disproportionate distribution of the population with the displaced lodged in camps thanks to some United Nations (UN) agencies like the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the World Food Program (WFP), the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), and the United Nation Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), in the areas of food provision, shelter, and medical care to the displaced and affected populations. Refugee camps can become an epicentre for diseases outbreaks like Tuberculosis, childhood diarrhoea, cholera, and HIV. Health workers are caught in the web, being attacked by armed groups, taking care of the wounded, while caring for themselves as well. It is important to address the major causes of armed conflict if we truly want to attain Universal Health Coverage, maintain a peaceful world, and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.