forcible transfer, administrative detention, torture, unlawful killings, denial of basic rights and freedoms, and persecution. In Iran, ethnic minorities, including Ahwazi Arabs, Azerbaijani Turks, Baluchis, Kurds and Turkmen, faced discrimination, restricting their access to education, employment, adequate housing and political office. Christians, Gonabadi Dervishes, Jews, Yaresan and Sunni Muslims also faced discrimination in law and practice. The Baha’i minority was particularly subjected to widespread and systematic violations. Discriminatory law in Kuwait denied the Bidun (a native stateless population) access to free state services, including education, provided to citizens. In Egypt, authorities arrested and prosecuted members of religious minorities, and people espousing beliefs not sanctioned by the state. In Libya, Tabu and Tuareg communities, denied national identity cards due to discrimination, struggled to access basic services, amid rising racism and xenophobia. Governments must take urgent action to end gender-based discrimination and violence against women and girls, and LGBTI people and bring to justice those responsible for such crimes. They must also decriminalize consensual same-sex sexual relations. Governments must end discrimination based on race, national origin, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity and expression and implement legal and policy reforms to grant equal rights for all without discrimination and to protect, promote and guarantee the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief. RIGHTS OF INTERNALLY DISPLACED PEOPLE, MIGRANTS AND REFUGEES Protracted conflicts in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen left vast numbers of internally displaced people struggling to survive. Most faced barriers to accessing services, discrimination, blocks on their right to return home or reprisals if they tried to return without authorization, and restrictions and cuts to vital humanitarian aid. In Iraq, at least 1.1 million people remained internally displaced as a result of the conflict with the armed group Islamic State, with the majority remaining in precarious situations almost six years after the conflict. In April, Iraqi authorities closed, without warning or coordination with humanitarian actors, the last operating internally displaced people’s camp. In Syria, around 2.9 million internally displaced people in the north-west continued to rely on UN-coordinated humanitarian assistance, and in 2023, at least 118,000 more people were displaced by armed clashes. The Syrian government restricted essential supplies from reaching civilians, including many internally displaced people, who lived in predominantly Kurdish areas in the northern Aleppo region, and already faced severe shortages of fuel and aid. Natural disasters, the impacts of which were exacerbated by government mismanagement, impunity and the rule of militias, compounded the problems of displaced people and added hundreds of thousands to their ranks. Earthquakes in south-eastern Türkiye and northern Syria on 6 February displaced around 400,000 families in Syria and left nearly 9 million people in need of immediate humanitarian support. Many families lost their homes and were forced to live in temporary shelters and camps. The earthquakes also increased the humanitarian needs of all those previously displaced in north-west Syria, including the growing number living in tents with limited or no access to water, sanitation and healthcare. Migrants’ and refugees’ rights took a battering across the region. In Lebanon, host to an estimated 1.5 million Syrian – and more than 200,000 other refugees – the government’s failure to mitigate the impacts of the country’s economic crisis left around 90% of Syrian refugees in extreme poverty, without access to adequate food and basic services. Increasing The State of the World’s Human Rights 65