The number of internally displaced persons worldwide will rise to a record 71.1 million by 2022. This is according to a Thursday published report of the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC). In 2021, there will still be more than 59 million displaced persons. The increase is mainly due to the war in Ukraine and climate disasters, such as the severe floods in Pakistan.
The total number of internally displaced persons is a snapshot, namely the number of people who were internally displaced at the end of 2022. About 62.5 million people fled because of conflict and violence, the remaining 8.7 million people did so because of natural disasters. According to the IDMC, three-quarters of displaced people live in just 10 countries, including Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan.
Nearly six million Ukrainians were on the run in their own country by the end of 2022. At the end of 2021, when Russia had not yet invaded, there were still more than 850,000 internally displaced persons. The number of Ukrainians who fled the country because of the war is even higher. In May 2023, more than 8.2 million Ukrainian refugees will reside in Europe alone, according to the latest update of the UN refugee agency UNHCR.