internally displaced person
internally displaced person. A person who has been forced to migrate within a national territory because of threats to life, limb, or freedom, and who cannot establish a new residence because of continuing threats. • Internally displaced persons flee for the same reasons as refugees — fear of persecution, human-rights abuses, civil war, natural or man-made disasters, etc. — but do not cross national borders and have no legal protection under international law. — Abbr. IDP.