The war in Ukraine helped push the global total of people left internally displaced by conflict or natural disasters to a record high of 71.1 million last year, according to a report released on Thursday by the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. By the end of 2022, 5.9 million people had been forced to move inside Ukraine because of Russia’s invasion, bringing the global total of people internally displaced by conflict and violence to more than 62 million, an increase of 17 per cent since 2021. Syria had 6.8 million displaced by conflict after more than a decade of civil war. The number of people displaced inside their country at the end of the year because of disasters like floods and famine reached 8.7 million, up by 45 per cent from 2021.
The total of 71.1 million internally displaced worldwide was a 20 per cent increase since 2021. Internal displacement refers to people forced to move inside their own borders and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre’s report didn’t take into account those who left for different countries. Following a year when conflict raged in Ukraine, Syria, Ethiopia and elsewhere, there has been no respite in 2023.