A/71/254 resources to evacuate easily. For example, the location of minority homes and settlements may be on the periphery of more established neighbourhoods in areas more susceptible to disasters such as floodplains, coastal towns, and unstable hillsides, or more closely situated next to landfills or other und esirable sites that may be potential locations of man-made disasters. Marginalized minorities may also reside in slum areas or shantytowns, or more remote regions which often are lacking basic infrastructure, and may therefore be particularly at risk durin g disasters (see A/HRC/31/56, para. 92). 81. There are numerous examples from around the globe of where minorities have been particularly affected by natural disasters. In 2014, floods in Bosnia and Herzegovina had a disproportionate impact on particular Roma communities. 33 In 2005, Muslims in the south, south east and the east coast of Sri Lanka were the worst affected by the tsunami that hit the country. China, for example, is one of the countries with the highest occurrence of disasters, which disproportionately affect rural areas of the country where ethnic minorities reside. 2. Access to humanitarian aid 82. Unfortunately, minorities may not only be disproportionately impacted by disasters, but also may experience discrimination in terms of equal access to humanitarian aid in times of disasters, a discrepancy which often then extends to the rehabilitation phase, thereby keeping minorities socially and economically behind in their longer-term recovery from such events. 83. As noted in her report of 2016 to the Human Rights Council, the Special Rapporteur observed that an analysis of emergency responses to natural disasters in South Asia, including in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal, has demonstrated that Dalits, for example, have suffered from acute discrimination throughout all the phases of disaster response, from rescue to rehabilitation (see A/HRC/31/56, para 93). 84. This was also the case regarding the 2005 Hurricane Katrina, which wreaked havoc across the United States Gulf Coast. While the hurricane led to one of the greatest episodes of internal displacement in United States history, with over a million people forced from their homes and communities, the disaster also had a clear racial dimension. In terms of evacuation, in the state of Louisiana for example, the funded evacuation plan relied on personal vehicles as the primary means of escape. However, Black Americans, who constituted the majority of the pre-Katrina population of New Orleans, were less likely to own cars than whites, and therefore faced a serious disadvantage. Another example comes from Pakistan, where there are allegations that members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim communit y did not receive equal access to humanitarian services in the aftermath of the catastrophic 2010 floods. 34 85. The Special Rapporteur does not suggest that an intention of direct discrimination by humanitarian relief providers is necessarily always the cause of __________________ 33 34 16-13193 Michelle Yonetani, “Global estimates 2015: people displaced by disasters” (Geneva, Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Norwegian Refugee Council, 2015). Available from www.internal-displacement.org/assets/library/Media/201507-globalEstimates-2015/20150713global-estimates-2015-en-v1.pdf. Atif M. Malik, “Denial of flood aid to the Ahmadiyya Muslim community of Pakistan”, 2011, available from https://cdn2.sph.harvard.edu/wp -content/uploads/sites/13/2013/06/MalikFINAL2.pdf. 21/25