A report by the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre has revealed that 71.1 million people were internally displaced due to conflict or natural disasters in 2022, reaching a record high. The war in Ukraine was a major contributor, resulting in 5.9 million people being internally displaced due to Russia’s invasion, bringing the total to over 62 million worldwide as a result of conflict and violence, an increase of 17% since 2021. At the year’s end, 8.7 million people were displaced within their own countries due to disasters such as floods and hunger, a 45 percent increase over the previous year.

After more than a decade of warfare, nearly 6.8 million Syrians were displaced as a result of the civil war. However, the report did not include those who had left their country for other nations.

Ukraine, Syria, Ethiopia, and other countries have all experienced unrest in the preceding year, and 2023 has been no exception. According to the United Nations migration agency, 700,000 people have been displaced in just a few weeks due to fighting between the Sudanese army and a rival paramilitary group.

The report stated that La Nina, which persisted for a third year in 2022, was to blame for massive population transfers. The study uncovered the greatest drought in Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia, and the worst flood displacement in Pakistan, Nigeria, and Brazil.

Secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council Jan Egeland saw 2022 as a “perfect storm” of violent conflict and natural disasters, leading to “displacement on a scale never seen before.”