The number of internally displaced people reached a record 71.1 million worldwide last year due to conflicts and climate change events, according to data published today.
The Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) said that figure represented a 20% increase since 2021, with an unprecedented number of people fleeing in search of safety and shelter.
IDMC said that nearly three-quarters of the world's displaced people live in ten countries, including Syria, Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ukraine and Sudan, due to conflicts that prompted significant displacement in 2022.
The war in Ukraine triggered nearly 17 million displacements last year, according to IDMC.
The figures show that 8.7 million people were displaced as a result of disasters such as flooding in Pakistan.
"Conflict and violence triggered 28.3 million internal displacements worldwide, a figure three times higher than the annual average over the past decade," it said.
The bulk of displaced people last year - 32.6 million - was due to disasters including floods, droughts and landslides.
"Conflict and disasters combined last year to aggravate people's pre-existing vulnerabilities and inequalities, triggering displacement on a scale never seen before," said Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, which set up IDMC in 1998.
"The war in Ukraine also fuelled a global food security crisis that hit the internally displaced hardest. This perfect storm has undermined years of progress made in reducing global hunger and malnutrition."
