Record number of internally displaced persons worldwide
Published: Tuesday, May 14th 2024, 06:30
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Wars and conflicts have driven the number of people fleeing their own country to a new record worldwide. At the end of 2023, 75.9 million people were internally displaced - i.e. they had fled their homes and found shelter elsewhere in their home country, reported the Internally Displaced Persons Monitoring Center (IDMC) in Geneva on Tuesday. This was around seven percent more than a year earlier and 50 percent more than five years earlier. According to the data, two thirds of the 2023 newly displaced persons lived in the Gaza Strip, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The total number of people who have had to flee their homes due to wars, conflicts or disasters is significantly higher. It also includes people who have fled across borders to other countries. According to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, this figure was around 114 million people at the end of 2023. The UNHCR fears that it could rise to 130 million by the end of the year.
According to the IDMC, almost 90 percent of internally displaced people had to flee their homes due to conflict and violence, while the rest had to flee due to disasters. At the end of 2023, there were 7.7 million people who had been displaced by floods, storms, earthquakes, fires and other disasters and had found refuge elsewhere in their home countries. The Liaison Office is committed to helping countries provide more assistance to internally displaced persons.
"Conflict and the devastation that lies behind people means that millions are unable to build a new life, often for years," said IDMC Director Alexandra Bilak. The high number is "a damning verdict on the failure of conflict prevention and peace-building," said Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, which founded the observatory.
©Keystone/SDA
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