UNHCR: number of displaced people worldwide falls for first time in a decade

The number of people forcibly displaced around the world stood at 117.8 million at the end of 2025, according to the United Nations.

The UN refugee agency’s Global Trends report recorded 68.7 million internally displaced people and 41.6 million refugees in other countries -- all compelled to flee their homes because of conflict, violence or persecution.

But the findings show that forced displacement worldwide fell for the first time in a decade.

The number of refugees shrank by 3 percent in 2025 compared with the year before, due to a rise in returns in some of the world’s largest displacement crises, including Syria, Afghanistan, Sudan and the DR Congo.

But many of those returns occurred under difficult circumstances to fragile contexts where reintegration conditions remain extremely challenging.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Barham Salih, said ending some of the world’s major conflicts would allow millions more refugees to return safely and in dignity.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Convention on the Status of Refugees, which was adopted on July 28, 1951, and entered into force on April 22, 1954.