Forced displacement surged to historic new levels across the globe last year, and this year, according to the 2024 flagship Global Trends Report from UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.
The rise in overall forced displacement – to 120 million by May 2024 – was the 12th consecutive annual increase and reflects both new and mutating conflicts and a failure to resolve long-standing crises. The figure would make the global displaced population equivalent to the 12th largest country in the world, around the size of Japan.
A key factor driving the figures higher has been the devastating conflict in Sudan: at the end of 2023, 10.8 million Sudanese remained uprooted. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Myanmar, millions were internally displaced last year by vicious fighting. UNRWA estimates that by the end of last year, up to 1.7 million people (75 percent of the population) had been displaced in the Gaza Strip by the catastrophic violence, most of whom were Palestine refugees. Syria remains the world’s largest displacement crisis, with 13.8 million forcibly displaced in and outside the country.
The largest increase in displacement figures came from people fleeing conflict who remain in their own country, rising to 68.3 million people according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre – up almost 50 percent over five years.
The number of refugees and others in need of international protection climbed to 43.4 million when including those under UNHCR and UNRWA’s mandates. The vast majority of refugees are hosted in countries neighboring their own, with 75 percent residing in low- and middle-income countries that together produce less than 20 percent of the world’s income.
The report showed that worldwide, more than 5 million internally displaced people and 1 million refugees returned home in 2023. These figures show some progress towards longer-term solutions. Positively, resettlement arrivals increased to almost 160,000 in 2023.
The report also offered a new analysis of the climate crisis and how it increasingly and disproportionately affects forcibly displaced people.
Given the immense challenges facing 120 million forcibly displaced people outlined in the Global Trends report, UNHCR remains steadfast in its commitment to delivering new approaches and solutions to help people forced to flee their homes, wherever they are.
