Statement by the UN Special Rapporteur on the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism on the International Day of Remembrance of and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism 2025.

“One of the many ways people fall victim to terrorism is through the traumatic experiences of being forced to flee from their homes. Violence, forced recruitment, abduction and enslavement of women and girls, threats and extortion by terrorist groups can compel people to seek safety elsewhere in a country or even across borders.Displacement often occurs in fragile, conflict-affected and low-income States who have limited capacity to prevent it or provide humanitarian assistance and solutions to the victims.

Displacement has cascading impacts on human rights. While it may improve physical safety – though this is not always the case – it separates people from their homes, livelihoods, schools, health care, support networks and even family members.

Over the past year, I have met with many victims of forced displacement in Somalia, Côte d’Ivoire and Benin and heard about their struggles to rebuild safe and dignified lives. Some had experienced repeated cycles of displacement, including due to forced evictions, disasters, and violence. Forced displacement has also occurred elsewhere in West Africa and in the Sahel, including Nigeria, as well as in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The legacy of forced displacement is still raw after recent conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. Tens of thousands of displaced people, mainly women and children, remain detained in North-East Syria. Over half of the 2.1 million displaced people who have recently returned to Afghanistan were forced to leave by Iran and Pakistan, where they had earlier sought refuge without other countries sharing responsibility for them.

People are forced to move not only because of terrorist threats, but also due to security operations by States while countering terrorism and the climate of insecurity during armed conflicts. International humanitarian law exceptionally allows the temporary displacement of civilians to ensure their safety or for imperative security reasons. Regrettably, some States have forcibly displaced civilians as an illegal tactic of war, including Israel in Gaza. Such forced displacements can also constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity and may even be an instrument of ethnic cleansing.

Counter-terrorism campaigns can also escalate into wider conflicts resulting in displacement. Recent examples include the hostilities between India and Pakistan after India responded to a terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir, and Israel’s targeting of Iranian nuclear facilities partly under the guise of preventing terrorism.

The UN Model Legislative Provisions to Support the Needs and Protect the Rights of Victims of Terrorism emphasize the need to equally recognize the victims of terrorism as well as of State human rights violations while countering terrorism.

In country visits, I found that internally displaced people, refugees and asylum seekers often face serious difficulties in accessing clean water, adequate food, decent shelter, quality schooling, livelihood opportunities, and land for cultivation or livestock. Many reported receiving little outside assistance and some lacked the documents necessary to exercise their legal rights.

Accessing healthcare is particularly challenging, with people being forced to borrow money to pay for their children’s treatment. There were significant unmet needs for the treatment of people traumatized by violence, including unacknowledged sexual and gender-based violence. Displacement also increases vulnerability to sexual violence, particularly for women and girls.

It was distressing to witness “lost generations” of children deprived of even basic education, seriously impeding their life opportunities and freedoms, and aggravating the risk of terrorist recruitment.

Some communities faced stigmatization and discrimination, including unfounded suspicions of associating with terrorists. Journalists reporting on conflicts, and human rights defenders, have also been threatened by terrorist groups and intimidated and arbitrarily detained by authorities as terrorist sympathizers.

Local communities reported being under stress from hosting displaced people, given population pressures, resource competition, and scarcity of public services. Host communities need to be adequately supported alongside displaced people.

Governments in low-income countries often make considerable efforts to support displaced people, including generously hosting refugees, aided by international humanitarian organizations and donor countries.

Many displaced people still reported receiving little outside assistance. The alarming global cuts to foreign aid, coupled with the United Nations liquidity crisis, are seriously undermining efforts to assist them. In Somalia, among the world’s least developed countries, aid cuts recently forced the country’s few rape crisis centres to close, excluding victims of conflict-related violence from this vital service.

I call on donor countries not to turn away from the victims of terrorism and counter-terrorism in their hour of greatest need.

Governments must also fulfil their responsibilities towards displaced persons in accordance with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, including in relation to the prevention of displacement, assistance during displacement, and assistance during return, resettlement and reintegration. The African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (known as Kampala Convention) should also be fully implemented.

Finally, the past year has seen an alarming resort to counter-terrorism pretexts to summarily expel foreign nationals, including asylum seekers, in breach of the duty of non-refoulement and the prohibition on arbitrary expulsion. In the United States, this has been carried out through the improper listing of organized criminal groups as “terrorist organizations” and abusively invoking war-time expulsion powers. Mass expulsions from neighbouring countries to Afghanistan were also partly based on unfounded security grounds.

Today, on the International Day of Remembrance of and Tribute to Victims of Terrorism, I urge all States to recommit to the protection of human rights affected by terrorism and counter-terrorism, in line with the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy. The international community must redouble efforts to assist displaced people, particularly in low-income, conflict-affected States, as among the most disadvantaged and marginalized of all victims.”

Mr. Ben Saul,UN Special Rapporteur on the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism.