Raging conflicts, disasters and worsening climate change displaced tens of millions of people within their own countries last year, a new record, monitors said Tuesday.
An unprecedented 83.4 million internally displaced people (IDPs) were registered in 2024 — equivalent to the entire population of Germany — amid mass displacement from conflicts in places like Sudan and Gaza, as well as floods and giant cyclones.
That is more than double the number from just six years ago, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said in their annual joint report on internal displacement.
“Internal displacement is where conflict, poverty and climate collide, hitting the most vulnerable the hardest,” IDMC chief Alexandra Bilak said in a statement.
– Most displaced by conflict –
The monitors highlighted that nearly 90 percent of the world’s IDPs, or 73.5 million people, were displaced by conflict and violence — an 80-percent increase since 2018.
Some 10 countries each counted more than three million IDPs from conflict and violence at the end of 2024, with civil war-ravaged Sudan alone home to a staggering 11.6 million IDPs — the most ever recorded in a single country, the report showed.
Some two million people, nearly the entire population of the Gaza Strip, was also displaced at the end of last year, even before fresh mass displacements since Israel ended a two-month ceasefire on March 18, ramping up its bombardment of the Palestinian territory.
Worldwide, close to 10 million people were displaced within their countries at the end of last year, after being forced to flee by disasters — more than double the number from five years ago, the monitors said.
A full 65.8 million new internal displacements were meanwhile reported in 2024, with some people forced to flee multiple times during the year, Tuesday’s report showed.
Conflict was responsible for 20.1 million of those fresh displacements, while a record 45.8 million people fled their homes to escape disasters.
– ‘Stain on humanity’ –
Faced with several major hurricanes like Helene and Milton, which prompted mass evacuations, the United States alone accounted for 11 million disaster-related displacements — nearly a quarter of global total, the report said.
Weather-related events, many intensified by climate change, triggered 99.5 percent of all of last year’s disaster displacements.
The number of countries reporting both conflict and disaster displacement had meanwhile tripled in 15 years, with more than three-quarters of people internally displaced by conflict living in countries that are very vulnerable to climate change.
Often, the drivers and impacts of displacement “are intertwined, making crises more complex and prolonging the plight of those displaced”, the report said.
The stark numbers come as humanitarian organisations worldwide have been reeling since US President Donald Trump returned to office in January, immediately freezing most US foreign aid funding.
Many of the sweeping cuts are being felt by IDPs, who typically garner less attention than refugees, who have fled into other countries.
“This year’s figures must act as a wake-up call for global solidarity,” NRC chief Jan Egeland insisted in the statement.
“Every time humanitarian funding gets cut, another displaced person loses access to food, medicine, safety and hope,” he warned.
The lack of progress towards reining in displacement globally, he said, “is both a policy failure and a moral stain on humanity”.