By the end of 2024, about 123 million people worldwide had been displaced from their homes by conflict, persecution or other significant threats to their well-being. This is according to the most recent report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (), the UN agency tasked with supporting forcibly displaced people.
The report, released in June, tracks people already recognized as , those still seeking to have their asylum requests approved abroad and those displaced within their countries of origin.
These nine charts show how the patterns of forced migration have evolved over time, where people are fleeing from, and which countries are receiving the highest shares of displaced people.
1. Number of forcibly displaced rising dramatically
In 2015, nine in 1,000 people globally were forcibly displaced. In 2024, the number was 15 in 1,000.
This means that worldwide, about 58 million more people have been displaced from their homes now due to humanitarian crises than in 2015. That is equivalent to the entire population of Italy.
2. Most people are displaced internally
Of the about 123 million displaced people worldwide tracked by the UNHCR, 73.5 million were internally displaced. That means they were forced from their homes and communities but remained within the borders of their countries of origin. That number is equivalent to the entire population of Thailand.
The UNHCR figure refers only to the people displaced by violence and war. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC) estimates that 9.8 million more have been displaced by natural disasters and climate change.
3. Africa, Middle East have most internally displaced persons
Of the 73.5 million internally displaced people, about 45% are from African countries and around 22% from the Middle East.
With 11.6 million internally displaced people, is home to 16% of the global internally displaced population. Other places with a high number of internally displaced people include (7.4 million), the (6.2 million), and (4.8 million).
Among the 10 countries with the largest populations of internally displaced people, only four are not in Africa or the Middle East: (7.2 million), in South America, (4.1 million), in Central Asia, (3.6 million), in Europe, and (3.5 million), in Southeast Asia.
4. Some European nations also have high proportion of internally displaced
A significant proportion of the population has also been forced from their homes in other regions, as well — including Europe.
That is the case in Cyprus, where more than 245,000 people — or about 18% of the population — are considered displaced today. Most of them were forced to flee their homes because of the five-decade territorial conflict with Turkey.
The situation is similar in , , and . Often, people can remain displaced for decades — or even generations — after the initial events that forced them from their homes.
5. Nearly 90% of refugees come from only 10 countries
According to the UNHCR, about 45.3 million people worldwide live outside of their countries of origin as refugees or under other international protection programs, such as temporary humanitarian stays. That is more than the entire population of Iraq.
Globally, nine in 10 refugees come from, the , Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine, , Sudan, , the Democratic Republic of Congo, and .
6. Most seek shelter in neighboring countries
The countries that take in the most refugees often share borders with countries of regions where humanitarian crises are occurring. According to the UNHCR report, 67% of the refugees in 2024 were living in a nation that neighbors their country of origin.
, , , and Colombia are home to the largest numbers of refugees, most of them fleeing from Afghanistan, Syria, the Palestinian Territories, and Venezuela respectively.
The biggest exception is Germany, which receives hundreds of thousands of migrants from distant nations such as Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Eritrea.
7. Developing countries take in a disproportionate number of refugees
Germany hosts the most refugees of any EU country, with more than 2.5 million. However, Germany hosts fewer displaced people than Iran, Turkey, Jordan and Colombia.
Home to 11.4 million people, Jordan hosts the highest number of refugees in proportion to its population. More than 3 million refugees, most of whom come from the nearby Palestinian Territories, live in Jordan, which hosts around 270,000 refugees for each 1 million inhabitants.
Some of the world’s poorest countries host the highest number of refugees. Chad, for example, hosts more than 1 million people, despite being one of the least developed nations in the planet. That is more than 56,000 refugees for each 1 million inhabitants, nearly two times more than the refugee rate in Germany.
8. Increasing gap between asylum requests and decisions
Apart from internally displaced people and recognized refugees, there are about 8.4 million people who are still waiting for their status as refugees to be recognized or rejected by the host nations where they have applied.
The number of decisions regarding asylum status is not keeping pace with the requests. In 2024, 1.4 million decisions were made worldwide, but there were also around 3.1 million new asylum requests.
Displaced people are often caught in a legal limbo as the backlog of applications keeps increasing.
9. Displaced people often return to countries that remain unsafe
In 2024, about 1.6 million former refugees went back to their countries of origin. However, returning home is often not safe. Most of them went back to nations that were still facing war and conflict, such as South Sudan and Ukraine.
Edited by: Milan Gagnon
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