New record: Number of internally displaced people worldwide reaches 83 million
A new study shows that there are as many people fleeing within their own country worldwide as there are residents of Germany. Most are fleeing wars like those in the Gaza Strip and Sudan or are being displaced by extreme weather.
Armed conflicts, natural disasters, and worsening climate change caused the number of internally displaced people to rise to a new record high last year, according to an NGO. By 2024, 83.4 million people were internally displaced, according to a joint report published Tuesday by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).
The unprecedented increase was primarily caused by the conflicts in Sudan and the Gaza Strip, as well as floods and massive cyclones such as Helene and Milton. According to the report, the number of internally displaced people worldwide increased by more than 50 percent within six years. By the end of 2023, the number had reached 75.9 million.
In its report, the NGO emphasized that nearly 73.5 million people, or 90 percent of the world's internally displaced persons, have been displaced by conflict and violence. This represents an 80 percent increase since 2018. According to the report, 11.6 million internally displaced people live in the civil war-torn country of Sudan alone—more than ever before in a single country.
Natural disasters were also the reason for approximately ten million people to flee – more than double the number from five years ago. According to the report, around 99.5 percent of all disaster-related internal displacement last year was due to weather-related events, many of them due to worsening climate change.
The NGO's director, Alexandra Bilak, spoke of a "confluence of conflict, poverty, and climate that hits the most vulnerable hardest." The report stated that the causes and effects of displacement are often "intertwined, making crises even more complex and exacerbating the hardship of displaced people."
The IDMC was founded in 1998 by the Norwegian Refugee Council. This year's figures should be "a wake-up call for global solidarity," said the council's director, Jan Egeland. "Every time humanitarian funding is cut, another displaced person loses access to food, medicine, safety, and hope," he said. The lack of progress in curbing global internal displacement is "both a political failure and a moral stain on humanity."
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
