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Research Paper

Fewer Displaced, Not Fewer Crises: Forced Displacement after the First Decline in a Decade

MER/26/D05 · Meridian Research Team ·

Fewer Displaced, Not Fewer Crises: Forced Displacement after the First Decline in a Decade

For the first time in a decade, the number of people forcibly displaced worldwide fell in 2025. The fall was driven by an exceptional wave of returns to Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, many of them under pressure and to places that remain unsafe. In the same year, conflict uprooted people inside their own countries more often than ever recorded, resettlement places more than halved and the data used to count displaced people became thinner. This paper reads the latest UNHCR and Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre reports together and assesses what the decline does, and does not, show.

Key points

  • UNHCR estimates that 117.8 million people were forcibly displaced at the end of 2025, 5.4 million fewer than a year earlier, a fall of 4% and the first decline in a decade [1, ch. 1].
  • The decline reflects returns rather than resolution. Some 14.7 million refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) returned in 2025, about 50% more than in 2024, but UNHCR judges that most returns took place under adverse circumstances or to fragile contexts [1, ch. 1 and insight 2; 2].
  • New displacement did not slow. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) recorded a record 32.3 million internal displacements caused by conflict and violence in 2025, nearly 60% more than in 2024 and, for the first time, more than those caused by disasters [3, pp. XII–XIII].
  • Arrivals through resettlement and sponsorship fell by more than half, to 81,800, against an estimated 2.9 million refugees in need of resettlement [1, ch. 1].
  • Part of the fall may be statistical: IDMC notes reduced data availability or changed sources in 15% of countries, and nearly three-quarters of countries with conflict IDPs lacked up-to-date data [3, pp. XII–XIII].

1. The problem

Forced displacement is one of the clearest indicators of how well, or how badly, the international system manages conflict. In June 2026 UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, reported that the global total had fallen for the first time in a decade [1; 2]. A month earlier, IDMC, which compiles the global figures on internal displacement that UNHCR also uses, reported the first fall in the number of IDPs in a decade [3, pp. XII–XIII].

A falling total invites the conclusion that crises are easing. The detail in both reports points to a less comfortable reading: many people have gone home under pressure, fewer can move on to third countries and fewer places are being counted well.

2. The evidence

The headline fall. At the end of 2025, 117.8 million people were forcibly displaced, one in every 70 people worldwide [1, ch. 1; 2]. They included 41.6 million refugees, of whom 35.6 million were under UNHCR's mandate (nearly 1.2 million fewer than a year earlier) and almost 6 million were Palestine refugees under the mandate of UNRWA [1, ch. 1; 2]. The number of asylum-seekers awaiting a decision rose by 645,300 to almost 9 million, because new claims outpaced decisions [1, ch. 1]. People displaced inside their own countries by conflict or violence numbered 68.7 million, 58% of the total and 4.9 million fewer than in 2024 [1, ch. 1].

IDMC's wider count, which adds people displaced by disasters, puts the number of IDPs at 82.2 million in 104 countries and territories: more than 68.6 million displaced by conflict and violence and almost 13.6 million by disasters [3, pp. XII–XIII]. Its series shows the total more than doubling from 38.9 million in 2016 to 83.5 million in 2024 before the 2025 dip, although figures from 2019 onwards also include disaster IDPs [3, pp. 3–4]. Both institutions describe the fall as the first in a decade [1, ch. 1; 3, pp. 3–4], and IDMC stresses that the internal total remains close to record levels [3, p. XI].

Returns on an exceptional scale. In 2025, 14.7 million people returned to their countries or places of origin: nearly 4.4 million refugees and just over 10.3 million IDPs [1, insight 2]. Refugee returns were nearly three times the 2024 level and the second highest since UNHCR's records began in 1965 [1, insight 2; 2]. More than 90% of refugees who returned went to three countries: Afghanistan (1.9 million), Syria (1.3 million) and Sudan (651,500) [1, trends at a glance]. Returns to six countries, led by the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan (3.6 million each), accounted for 92% of all returns [1, ch. 1].

Internally displaced people at year end, 2016–2025 (million)201638.9m201739.4m201840.6m201949.1m202054.1m202158.1m202269.8m202375.0m202483.5m202582.2m
Figure 1. People living in internal displacement at the end of each year. Figures to 2018 cover conflict and violence only; from 2019 they also include people displaced by disasters. Source: IDMC, Global Report on Internal Displacement 2026, pp. 3–4 [3].

The circumstances varied. About 2.9 million Afghans returned, including 1.9 million refugees, mostly because of policy changes in neighbouring host countries; UNHCR assessed most of these returns as involuntary [1, insight 2]. The global number of Afghan refugees fell from 5.8 million to 3.7 million in a single year [1, insight 2]. After the fall of the Assad government, 1.3 million Syrian refugees and 2 million Syrian IDPs returned, yet 15.6 million people in Syria require humanitarian assistance in 2026 [1, insight 2]. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 3.6 million IDPs returned, but many returns were involuntary, prompted by the forced closure of displacement settlements around Goma and Nyiragongo by the de facto authorities that took control of the area in January 2025 [1, ch. 3].

New displacement continued. Almost 5.4 million people fled across borders during 2025, led by people from Sudan (952,700) and Ukraine (788,100) [1, ch. 1]. Sudan's refugee population grew by 35% to 2.8 million, and with 9.1 million IDPs it remained the largest internal displacement crisis in the world [1, chs. 2, 3; 2]. IDMC recorded 62.2 million internal displacements across 146 countries and territories, 6% fewer than in 2024, but the mix changed sharply. Conflict and violence caused a record 32.3 million, more than double the decadal average, while disaster displacements fell by 35% to 29.9 million after the exceptional levels of 2024 [3, pp. XII–XIII]. International armed conflicts accounted for 46% of conflict displacements, and the number of countries recording displacement linked to international conflict rose from six to 13 [3, pp. XII–XIII].

Fewer ways out. Arrivals through resettlement or sponsorship pathways fell from 188,800 in 2024 to 81,800 in 2025, largely because of fewer arrivals in major resettlement countries, particularly the United States [1, ch. 1]. UNHCR had estimated that 2.9 million refugees needed resettlement in 2025 [1, ch. 1]. Meanwhile, 65% of refugees remained in countries neighbouring their own, low- and middle-income countries hosted 68%, and the Least Developed Countries, with 1.4% of global GDP, hosted 26% [1, ch. 2].

Thinner data. IDMC warns that in some settings the decrease "may also reflect reduced data availability or shifts in sources", as observed in 15% of countries in 2025 [3, pp. XII–XIII]. Its director writes that funding cuts have constrained data collection [3, p. XI].

3. Analysis

The following assessments are Meridian analysis based on the evidence above.

First, the decline measures movement, not settlement. A return removes a person from the statistics whether or not it is safe or lasting. When most refugee returns are judged to have occurred under adverse circumstances [1, insight 2], a lower total is weak evidence that crises have eased, and failed returns can lead to renewed displacement.

Second, the main driver of displacement is shifting towards war between states. A record level of conflict displacement, a rising share linked to international armed conflict and a doubling in the number of countries affected by it [3, pp. XII–XIII] are consistent with the rise in interstate conflict examined in MER/26/B01. In the first months of 2026, UNHCR reported an estimated 1 million IDPs in Lebanon and 3.2 million people temporarily displaced in Iran as of the end of March [1, ch. 1].

Third, responsibility-sharing is narrowing. With resettlement arrivals equal to under 3% of estimated need (Meridian calculation), and most refugees hosted by neighbouring and poorer countries [1, chs. 1, 2], the burden rests on states with the least capacity. This coincides with the record fall in official development assistance examined in MER/26/D03.

Fourth, the evidence base is itself at risk. If data coverage weakens where crises are most acute [3, pp. XI–XIII], future totals may understate displacement, so a small decline should be treated with caution.

4. Assessment

  • The first fall in global forced displacement in a decade is real but rests largely on pressured and fragile returns [1; 2].
  • Conflict is uprooting people at record rates, increasingly through international armed conflict [3].
  • Safe routes out of displacement contracted sharply in 2025 [1].
  • UNHCR estimated that displacement in April 2026 was at a similar level to, or slightly lower than, the end of 2025 [1, ch. 1]. Indicators to watch: UNHCR's Mid-Year Trends report for the first half of 2026, IDMC's next global report and evidence on whether 2025's returns are holding.

References

  1. UNHCR, Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2025 (UNHCR, June 2026). https://www.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/2026-06/global-trends-report-2025.pdf (accessed 28 October 2026).
  2. UNHCR, "Global Trends", web page, 11 June 2026. https://www.unhcr.org/global-trends (accessed 28 October 2026).
  3. Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Global Report on Internal Displacement 2026 (IDMC, May 2026). https://api.internal-displacement.org/sites/default/files/publications/documents/IDMC-GRID-2026-Global-Report-on-Internal-Displacement.pdf (accessed 28 October 2026).