This piece investigates the link between the nature of internal displacement and responses by the international community to assist and protect internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). In order to investigate this pattern, it develops a typology on the root sources of internal displacement. The article claims that the conditions behind internal displacement may shape the characteristics of this phenomenon, including, among the most important, how parties behave vis-à-vis IDPs, the prospects for a prompt resolution of people’s displacement, and the political ramifications of the uprooting (i.e., instability within the afflicted country or inter-state frictions derived from an eventual spill-over of refugees). These features, in turn, may shed light on how afflicted and donor states as well as humanitarian organizations react to internal displacement.