The United Nations refugee agency on Thursday (June 13) released a report saying the number of people forcibly displaced stood at a record 117.3 million as of the end of last year, and warned that this figure could rise further if no major global political changes took place.

In its report on Global Trends in Displacement, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that there had been a yearly increase in the number of people forcibly displaced over the last twelve years.

UNHCR estimates that forced displacement has continued to increase in the first four months of 2024, and that is likely to have exceeded 120 million by the end of April.

“These are refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced people, people being forced by conflict, by persecution, by different and increasingly complex forms of violence,” said UNHCR head Filippo Grandi.

The conflicts that have driven displacement include the war in Sudan, which Grandi described as “one of the most catastrophic ones” despite garnering less attention than other crises.

In Gaza, Israel’s bombardment and ground campaign have caused around 1.7 million people – nearly 80% of the Palestinian enclave’s population – to become internally displaced, many of them multiple times.

(Reuters)