Escape
Number of internally displaced people reaches peak
A man says goodbye to his five-year-old daughter at the Kiev train station in Ukraine. photo
© Emilio Morenatti/AP/dpa
More and more people have to flee from conflicts, hunger and climate change in their own country. The problem is particularly large in ten countries.
Conflicts, hunger and climate change are uprooting more and more people. As the Geneva-based Observatory for Internally Displaced Persons (IDMC) further reported, the number of people displaced in their own country jumped to 71.1 million last year. That’s 20 percent more than the year before. More people than ever before had to flee within twelve months, 60.9 million – many of them who had already been displaced.
In Ukraine alone, around 5.9 million people were displaced by the Russian war of aggression at the end of 2022. Several million people fled abroad from there. According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), around five million people received protection in Europe alone. However, the Observatory’s report only deals with displaced persons who remained in the country where they previously lived.
The problem is particularly large in ten countries
Around 28.3 million people were displaced by conflict and violence in their own country in 2022, almost twice as many as in the previous year. 32.6 million had to leave their homes because of natural and climate disasters, 40 percent more than the year before. The triggers were droughts like in the Horn of Africa or floods like in Pakistan. Among these displaced people are people who had previously fled.
The problem is particularly acute in ten countries, which together account for three-quarters of the displaced, the Observatory reported: Syria, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ukraine, Colombia, Ethiopia, Yemen, Nigeria, Somalia and Sudan. Even before the recent fighting, there were 3.7 million displaced people in Sudan.
Since the figures relate to 2022, the recent mass exodus after fighting broke out in Sudan in mid-April is not taken into account. At least 700,000 people have been displaced in their own country since mid-April. By May 9, at least 150,000 had already fled across borders to neighboring countries.