Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether it is their assessment that Colombia has the highest number of internally displaced persons in the world; and why, at the 38th session of the Human Rights Council, they did not include Colombia in the references made to countries where there are large numbers of internally displaced persons.

Colombia's 52 year conflict has claimed over 8 million victims including more than 7 million displaced persons. In recent years, only the conflict in Syria has seen a larger number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) caused by internal conflict.

Speaking times at the Human Rights Council are limited, so it is impossible to cover every country of concern in the UK intervention. On this occasion, the UK chose to prioritise raising Iraq, Syria, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the situation for IDPs had deteriorated significantly during recent months.

Concerns about major displacements in Colombia were also included the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's 2017 Human Rights report, published on 16 July.