75.9 million people were internally displaced across 116 countries at the end of 2023, according to the Global Report on Internal Displacement, published by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre earlier this week. This figure is the highest on record and an increase of 51 percent in just five years. The rise is the result of both new escalations of conflict as well as natural disasters, forcing millions to flee and to add to the tens of millions already living in displacement from earlier events. This pattern is expected to rise still further in the coming years.
In 2023, there were some 20.5 million internal displacements as a result of conflict and violence as well as an estimated 26.4 million internal displacements due to natural disasters. According to the IDMC’s methodology, each time a person is forced to flee is counted as a new displacement, and so one person can have multiple displacements in a year.
As this chart shows, the five countries reporting the highest figures for displacements from conflicts in 2023 were Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Palestinian territories, Myanmar and Ethiopia. When counting the total number of newly displaced people, in addition to those who are still displaced from previous conflicts around the world, the figure rises to a record 68.3 million. The authors of the report highlight how conflicts can be drawn out over years with the potential for flare ups, making it hard for people to return to their homes over long periods of time.
Disaters meanwhile, appear to have led to more temporary displacements. The most people displaced by disasters last year were in China, Turkey, the Philippines, Somalia and Bangladesh, with the majority of people forced from their homes due to floods, storms and earthquakes.
