Overview
In 2025, the forced displacement trends in eleven of the largest forced displacement crises worldwide are summarised below.
More information about forced displacement during 2025 is available in
Global Trends.
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2025 has led to rapidly worsening security and humanitarian conditions,
particularly in South and North Kivu, as well as in Ituri Provinces. The conflict has continued in 2026 without
tangible improvement in sight. The peace agreement signed in June 2025 in Washington between the Democratic
Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, and the agreement in November 2025 between the Congolese authorities and the
non-state armed group M23 in Doha, still have to translate into real improvements on the ground for the civilian
population, particularly those internally displaced.
1
Millions of Congolese civilians were forced to flee during 2025, while new and secondary internal displacement continues in 2026.
Repeated reports of attacks against civilians and other human rights violations, including conflict-related sexual violence,
have been attributed to all parties to the conflict, including M23 and other militias.
This has further compounded an already dire humanitarian situation.
2
Aside from grave protection risks and multiple violations, displaced populations face chronic hunger,
overcrowded shelter conditions, inadequate provision of water and sanitation, and collapsing health
services, triggering major cholera and measles outbreaks.
3
In 2025, reported incidents of rape and other forms of conflict‑related sexual violence were estimated to have
risen by one-third compared to 2024.
4
Approximately 3.6 million Congolese IDPs were reported to have returned to their areas of origin during the year 2025.
However, many of the returns were involuntary, prompted by the forced closure of IDP settlements around
Goma and Nyiragongo by the de facto authorities who took control over Goma and the nearby region.
5
Returning IDPs faced continuous protection risks including gender-based violence, forced recruitment,
explosive hazards contamination, extortion and exploitation, including by local communities with opposite allegiances.
6
Overall, the humanitarian situation remains grim, with 5.7 million Congolese people remaining displaced at end-year
within their country or as refugees and asylum-seekers in the region and further afield.
The ceasefire that came into effect in October in the Gaza Strip in the State of Palestine continued to hold amid
repeated violations against the civilian population, lack of progress in the rehabilitation of infrastructure and
restricted humanitarian access.
Between the ceasefire and the end of 2025, more than 400 Palestinians have been killed and over 1,100 were injured.
7
An estimated 90 per cent of the population, around 2 million people, remained displaced at end-2025,
with most having been forced to flee multiple times.
8
The humanitarian situation remains dreadful for the civilian population, with widespread devastation across
the territory and further destruction during the year.
9
Distributions of humanitarian aid were heavily restricted, contributing to high levels of food insecurity,
leading to the declaration of famine in Gaza in August 2025 which continued until December.
10
Almost three years after its onset, at the end of 2025, the conflict in Sudan remained the largest displacement
situation globally, with 12.9 million Sudanese refugees, asylum-seekers and IDPs globally.
11
During 2025, fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and
allied armed groups intensified in Darfur and subsequently in Kordofan states.
The fighting was characterized by siege tactics, increased use of air bombardments and of new warfare technology,
such as drones, often in defiance of the basic tenets of international humanitarian law.
Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced during the year, in repeated attacks against civilians,
such as the attack against the Zamzam IDP camp in April 2025.
12
The intensification of the conflict in North Darfur led to a sustained movement of IDPs to El Fasher,
which by September had become a haven for IDPs. In October 2025, after having laid a siege lasting for 18 months,
which deliberately exacerbated civilian suffering inside the city, the RSF captured El Fasher through unlawful acts
resulting in suffering, physical and psychological harm to tens of thousands of civilians.
13
An estimated 90,000 IDPs escaped to nearby areas in Darfur under the control of other groups, notably to Tawila,
facing horrendous episodes of deliberate killings, sexual violence, extortions and other abuses while attempting to flee to safety.
14
In the last quarter of the year, fighting also intensified in the Kordofan region, with displacement from the region continuing to grow.
15
Conflict and restricted humanitarian access resulted in an estimated 21.1 million people facing acute food insecurity
(IPC Phase 3 or above) across Sudan. In October 2025, famine was confirmed in El Fasher and Kadugli towns while the risk of famine
has also been reported for 20 areas across the Greater Darfur and Greater Kordofan regions.
16
Pockets of relative stability emerged in other parts of Sudan, largely in the east and in the capital Khartoum,
once under the control of the SAF in March 2025.
This allowed an increasing number of IDPs to return to these areas, amid challenges of widespread destruction,
absence of services and high levels of explosive hazard contamination. By end-year, over 2.8 million IDPs returned,
primarily to the regions of Al Jazirah and Khartoum.
17
As a consequence, the total number of IDPs in Sudan fell to 9.1 million by the end of 2025.
By contrast, the number of Sudanese refugees and asylum-seekers globally surged by 35 per cent (983,800)
to reach nearly 3.8 million at end-2025. Neighbouring countries – Chad (1.3 million), Egypt (834,200),
18
South Sudan (571,100), Libya (552,100),
19 Ethiopia (98,900) and the Central African Republic (40,300) –
as well as nearby Uganda (92,900), hosted 96 per cent of all Sudanese refugees and asylum-seekers worldwide.
As the crisis became more protracted and donor support declined, humanitarian resources in these countries became severely overstretched.
20
During 2025, some 651,500 Sudanese refugees returned, mainly from neighbouring countries.
However, those movements were often triggered by the adverse conditions in countries of asylum,
grappling with overburdened services and diminishing donor support.
21
Violence and insecurity in South Sudan saw a sharp escalation since the beginning of 2025.
22
Armed conflict between the South Sudan People’s Defence Forces (SSPDF) and the Sudan People’s
Liberation Army‑in‑Opposition (SPLA‑IO) with allied militias reignited, particularly in Upper Nile State and
Jonglei State, displacing hundreds of thousands of people both within the country,
23
and into Ethiopia, Sudan and Uganda.
As a result, the South Sudanese refugee population increased by 21,900 to 635,000 in Sudan and grew by 58,600 to
reach just over 1 million in Uganda, while 51,600 South Sudanese people sought refuge in the Gambella region of Ethiopia.
24
In addition, between January and December 2025 an estimated 332,900 people were newly displaced within South Sudan,
25
with the number of IDPs at end-year rising to 1.3 million.
The complex and protracted humanitarian crisis in Myanmar continued in 2025, with armed conflict and ongoing clashes,
displacing 532,400 people within the country. As of end-2025, 3.6 million people were internally displaced.
A further 1.6 million were refugees or asylum-seekers of whom 289,500 have been displaced since February 2021.
26
The March 2025 earthquake in Myanmar significantly worsened the already severe displacement crisis in the country.
27
In Bangladesh, the Rohingya refugee population from Myanmar increased by 172,400 to nearly 1.2 million,
reflecting the biometric identification of refugees who had arrived during 2024 and 2025 and, to a lesser extent,
children born to already registered refugees.
Humanitarian support and resources in Myanmar as well as in Bangladesh and other host countries
in the region became increasingly strained, with refugees often coping with severe restrictions on movement,
limited access to education and livelihoods, escalating protection risks, and growing humanitarian needs.
While Thailand began granting work permits to encamped refugees from Myanmar, thousands of Rohingya
refugees across the region continued to undertake dangerous onward journeys in search of better protection,
safety, family reunification and livelihood opportunities. As of the end of December 2025, of the 55,200 people
fleeing Myanmar, or travelling onwards from countries of asylum, 6,500 have attempted to find safety and
protection via dangerous sea routes. 890 were reported dead or missing in 2024,
making this the deadliest route globally in 2025.
28
Following major military confrontations between Cambodia and Thailand in July and December 2025, 649,200
people were newly displaced within Cambodia across several north-western and western provinces.
Although nearly 131,600 returns were reported by the end of the year, tensions between the two countries have remained high.
29
At end-2025, 517,600 remained displaced within Cambodia.
Gang-related violence, civil unrest, targeted attacks on civilians and battles for territorial control continued to
escalate in Haiti, particularly in Port-au-Prince and neighbouring communes.
30
Fleeing the escalating violence, human rights violations and abuses, more than 574,300 people were newly internally displaced.
31
As a result, 1.4 million people remained internally displaced by end-2025, equivalent to one in eight Haitians nationwide.
Haiti was therefore one of the countries with the highest per-capita levels of conflict-driven internal displacement in the world at end-2025.
32
Millions of Syrians have returned home during 2025.
Following the fall of the Assad Government in December 2024,
renewed optimism for peace and stability in the country prompted forcibly displaced
Syrians to voluntarily return in greater numbers. During 2025, nearly 2 million IDPs
returned to their areas of origin and 1.3 million Syrians have returned from other,
mostly neighbouring, countries.
33
Many refugees are returning to areas affected by
widespread housing destruction, high levels of contamination by explosive hazards,
limited access to basic services, weak livelihoods and unresolved housing, land and
property issues, which significantly constrain sustainable reintegration.
In addition, the consequences of the political change, as well as episodes of sectarian
violence and insecurity continued to affect parts of the country, leading to over 112,000
new arrivals of Syrians in Lebanon between December 2024 and November 2025.
34
Within Syria, at least 162,500 people were newly displaced during the year,
largely due to episodes of inter-communal violence in the coastal areas in March
2025 and in As-Sweida in July 2025. Due to the scale of returns, the number of
Syrian refugees, asylum-seekers and IDPs overall fell by 2.5 million to 11 million,
the lowest number of forcibly displaced Syrians for more than 11 years.
In 2025, the scale of returns to Afghanistan was almost unprecedented as restrictive government
policies towards Afghans in the Islamic Republic of Iran
35
and Pakistan
36
have been introduced and applied.
Nearly 2.9 million Afghans returned during 2025, including 1.9 million refugees, more than five times
higher than during the previous year, with a shift in the profile of returnees, many of whom had lived
in Iran and Pakistan for prolonged periods or were born in those countries. Most Afghan returnees reported
that they had little or no choice in their decision to return to Afghanistan.
37
These large-scale return movements have placed severe pressure on Afghanistan’s already overstretched
infrastructures and basic services and occurred amidst worsening protection, socio economic and human
rights conditions, particularly for women and girls. As a result of the increased returns to Afghanistan,
the number of Afghans forcibly displaced beyond their country decreased by 2.2 million to just less than 4 million.
In October 2025, a renewed military confrontation between the Afghanistan and Pakistan led to almost 420,000 new
internal displacements within the two countries, particularly in the border areas. The ceasefire reached in
October 2025 collapsed in February 2026 with the eruption of renewed fighting and displacement.
38
In Ukraine, the civilian population and civilian infrastructure were repeatedly affected or
targeted by an escalation in deadly aerial attacks, as the international armed
conflict between Ukraine and the Russian Federation continued with increased intensity during 2025.
Civilian casualties, large-scale displacement, and deepening humanitarian needs remained
constant aspects of the conflict.
39
An estimated 668,000 Ukrainians were newly displaced within the country,
40
particularly in the East and southeastern regions with an estimated 3.7 million people
remaining internally displaced at end-year.
The European Union Temporary Protection Directive was extended until March 2027 and during 2025,
a total of 717,300 Ukrainians were granted temporary protection, notably in Germany, Poland and Czechia.
41
Almost 5.3 million Ukrainian refugees remained displaced globally in 106 countries.
42
Central Sahel (Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger)
The Sahel region continued to face a deepening displacement crisis fuelled by conflict, political instability,
violence and climate-related shocks.
43
The number of forcibly displaced people from Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger in the Central Sahel has grown
ten-fold over the last decade to reach over 3.9 million by end-2025.
Most have fled to other areas within their own countries although the number of refugees and asylum-seekers
from these three countries also grew by more than half during 2025 reaching 1.1 million people by the end of 2025.
More than 221,200 Burkinabe fled their country during 2025, 64 per cent more than the previous year.
Most sought safety in neighbouring countries, particularly Mali and Côte D’Ivoire. The number of Malians
seeking international protection nearly doubled from the previous year to reach 175,600. Most fled to other
countries in the region, notably Mauritania. In 2026, the situation has deteriorated further, particularly in Mali,
where the partial blockade of its capital, Bamako, at the end of April by insurgents may drive new population movements.
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