Record 83m people internally displaced worldwide: monitor

Raging conflicts, disasters and worsening climate change displaced tens of millions of people within their own countries last year, a new record, monitors said yesterday.

An unprecedented 83.4 million internally displaced people (IDPs) were registered in 2024 -- equivalent to the entire population of Germany -- amid mass displacement from conflicts in places like Sudan and Gaza, as well as floods and giant cyclones.

That is more than double the number from just six years ago, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said in their annual joint report on internal displacement.

"Internal displacement is where conflict, poverty and climate collide, hitting the most vulnerable the hardest," IDMC chief Alexandra Bilak said in a statement.

The monitors highlighted that nearly 90 percent of the world's IDPs, or 73.5 million people, were displaced by conflict and violence -- an 80-percent increase since 2018.

Some 10 countries each counted more than three million IDPs from conflict and violence at the end of 2024, with civil war-ravaged Sudan alone home to a staggering 11.6 million IDPs -- the most ever recorded in a single country, the report showed.

Some two million people, nearly the entire population of the Gaza Strip, was also displaced at the end of last year, even before fresh mass displacements since Israel ended a two-month ceasefire on March 18, ramping up its bombardment of the Palestinian territory.