BACKGROUND AND SCOPE According to the most recent estimates of displacement, there are 79.5 million people forcibly displaced by conflict in the world, including 45.7 internally displaced persons (IDPs), 26 million refugees and 4.2 million asylum seekers. 73% of people displaced across borders live in countries neighbouring their countries of origin,1 meaning that conflict tends to affect health and social care systems in wide geographic regions. Despite international calls for a unilateral ceasefire in ongoing conflicts to enable COVID-19 disease control,2 most wars in the Middle East and Africa have not ceased.3 While the adoption of travel restrictions and border closures to reduce the spread of COVID-19 has slowed much migration globally, forced displacement continues within conflict-affected states and across borders, as does the need to provide humanitarian protection and assistance to refugees, IDPs, asylum-seekers and stateless persons.4 Entrenched conflicts in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria, as well as South Sudan, Somalia and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo profoundly shape patterns of mobility in the Middle East and East Africa over generations, affecting coping strategies of people who decide to leave and those who stay, of people who are internally displaced and those who cross international borders. Responses to COVID-19 should consider the specific and varied types of settings occupied by displaced people in their migrations, as well as the diverse ways people migrate. This background paper has five sections outlining 1) the diversity of forced migration contexts, 2) an overview of COVID-19 epidemics in humanitarian settings, 3) how COVID-19 is accentuating vulnerabilities of forcibly displaced populations across East Africa and the Middle East, 4) opportunities and challenges in the localisation of COVID-19 responses and 5) recommendations on how to address COVID-19 vulnerabilities in displaced populations. DIVERSE FORMS OF DISPLACEMENT During war time, the ability to move is key for populations’ quest for survival and security. Forced displacement also triggers new vulnerabilities, and therefore new migration flows. Below are some key considerations about the types of spaces displaced people occupy on their journeys, reasons and ways people decide to move between them, as well as how people create a new sense of home in temporary and long-term sites of displacement. Types of accommodation: Camps and settlements with their orderly rows of tents or huts are iconic of refugee and IDP spaces.5 However, accommodation types where forcibly displaced people live are highly diverse, ranging from tented and highly-fortified camps, temporary transit and detention centres, unsheltered temporary arrangements, self-settled villages or neighbourhoods, rented private KEY CONSIDERATIONS: COVID-19 AND FORCED DISPLACEMENT IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND EAST AFRICA Contact: a.wilkinson@ids.ac.uk 3