Conflict and natural disasters forced millions of people to flee within their own countries last year, bringing the total number of displaced people to a record nearly 60 million, according to a study published by NGOs on Thursday.
According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), there were 59.1 million internally displaced persons in 2021, almost half of whom were under the age of 18.
From year to year this figure – which does not take into account refugees abroad – continues to grow and is expected to set a new record in this regard in 2022 due to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia that began on February 24.
It’s the second-highest year in a decade after 2020, when a series of natural disasters caused a record number of forced displacement.
“The year 2022 promises to be dark,” particularly the war in Ukraine, warned IDMC Director Alexandra Bilak at a news conference.
More than eight million people have been displaced within Ukraine, more than two months after Russia invaded the country, according to the UN.
The world situation “has never been so bad”, noted NRC Secretary General Jan Egeland, who asserted that “the world is collapsing”.
“The situation today is actually incredibly much worse than our record number suggests. We need world leaders to make a titanic shift in their thinking about conflict prevention and resolution to end this spiral of human suffering,” he said.
Africa southern of the Sahara
Last year, sub-Saharan Africa was the region with the highest number of internally displaced persons (many people moved multiple times), including more than five million in Ethiopia alone, a country hit by severe drought and where conflict erupted in late 2020 the Tigra region. This is the highest number ever recorded in a single country.
Unprecedented numbers were also recorded last year in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Afghanistan, where the Taliban’s return to power combined with a drought forced many to flee their homes.
In Burma, where the military took power after a coup in February 2021, displacement has also reached a record high.
The Middle East and North Africa, on the other hand, has seen the lowest numbers of new displacements in a decade, with conflicts in Syria, Libya and Iraq experiencing some de-escalation, but the region’s total number of displaced people remains high.
At the end of 2021, Syria still had the highest number of internally displaced persons due to conflict, at 6.7 million. They are followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (5.3 million) and Colombia (5.2 million) as well as Afghanistan and Yemen (4.3 million). everyone).
natural disasters
Although the number of people displaced by conflict is still increasing, natural disasters remain the main reason why people are forced to leave their homes (23.7 million displaced people in 2021).
No less than 94% of these displacements were attributed to meteorological and climatic catastrophes such as hurricanes, floods and droughts, phenomena that are becoming more frequent and intense due to climate change.
Around 70% of internal displacements related to natural disasters in 2021 were recorded in China, the Philippines and India.
However, conflicts and natural disasters increasingly go hand in hand, observed Mr. Egeland.
In countries like Mozambique, Burma, Somalia and South Sudan, the crises are overlapping, affecting food security and increasing the vulnerability of millions of people.