Conflict created more internal displacement than disasters last year: monitors

The front page of the Sunday, May 10, 2026 edition of the Iranian newspaper Tehran Times, with a headline about negotiations between Israel and Lebanon, is visible at a newsstand in northern Tehran, Iran, on Sunday, May 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

GENEVA - Conflict and violence drove more people to flee within their own countries last year than natural and manmade disasters for the first time on record, monitors said on Tuesday.

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre and the Norwegian Refugee Council said in their annual report on the subject that at the end of 2025, 82.2 million people were living in internal displacement worldwide.

The figure is just under the highest number ever recorded in 2024.

“Numbers remain at historic highs,” the director of the IDMC, Tracy Lucas, told AFP, calling the trends “a wake-up call”.

Over the course of last year, 65.8 million new internal displacements were reported, including a number of people forced to flee multiple times, the report showed.

Conflict and violence were responsible for 32.3 million of those displacements -- up 60 per cent from a year earlier -- while 29.9 million fled storms, floods and other disasters.

“Never have we recorded such a staggering number of displacements related to conflict,” said Lucas.

‘Global collapse’

The report detailed how emerging, escalating and entrenched conflicts in places such as Iran and the Democratic Republic of Congo forced people to flee repeatedly within their countries.

Such displacements remain highly concentrated.

As they were hit by deepening instability last year, Iran and the DR Congo alone accounted for two-thirds of all new conflict-driven internal displacements, counting around 10 million each, the report said.

Of the 69.7 million people who at the end of 2025 were living in internal displacement because of conflicts across 54 countries, nearly half were in just five countries, it said.

Civil war-ravaged Sudan counted the most IDPs for a third consecutive year, with over nine million, followed by Colombia, Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan.

“Internal displacement of tens of millions is a sign of a global collapse in prevention of conflict and basic protection of civilians,” NRC chief Jan Egeland said in a statement.

With new wars under way this year adding to numerous entrenched conflicts around the world, more displacement driven by violence can be expected.

“Countless families are returning to destroyed homes and disappearing services -- or cannot return at all,” Egeland said.

“From DR Congo and Sudan to Iran and Lebanon, we see millions more displaced on top of the previous record numbers driven out of their homes.”

Disaster-driven displacement

The monitors meanwhile highlighted a 35-per cent drop in disaster-driven displacement compared to the “exceptionally high levels” seen in 2024.

But they stressed that last year’s figures remained 13 per cent above the annual average for the past decade.

As climate change takes an increasing toll, they pointed out that a number of countries that had previously been less affected had recorded large-scale disaster-driven displacements last year, even as previous hotspots continued to be exposed.

Wildfires had, for instance, become an increasingly significant driver of displacement globally, accounting for nearly 700,000 displacements in 2025 alone.

The report stressed the need to invest heavily in climate adaptation.

The stark numbers come with humanitarian organisations worldwide reeling from foreign aid funding cuts, especially from the United States, which was the world’s top donor.

Many of the sweeping cuts are being felt by IDPs, who typically garner less attention than refugees, who have fled into other countries.

Another impact has been a dramatic decline in the amount of data being gathered, Tuesday’s report said.

“Data availability has declined in 15 per cent of the countries where we monitor,” Lucas said.

“Reliable displacement data is critical for understanding where needs and risks are greatest and for ensuring that policies and resources match the scale of the challenge,” she warned.

By Nina Larson.