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international rescue committee
‘Collective Failure of Humanity’: Nearly 118 Million Refugees Violently Displaced Worldwide
The number of people who were forcibly displaced at the end of last year dropped from 2024 levels, but that change was largely driven by people who were forced to return home, sometimes to precarious conditions.
Jun 11, 2026
The number of people forcibly displaced around the world fell last year for the first time in years, dropping by more than 5 million—but with that trend driven in part by countries that have forced refugees to return home, often to precarious or dangerous conditions, advocacy groups warned that the world's refugee and displacement crises are far from being solved.
At the end of last year, 117.8 million people were forcibly displaced around the world, according to data released Thursday by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). That number includes 41.6 million refugees, 9 million asylum-seekers, and 68.7 million internally displaced people.
While the number of displaced people fell from 123.2 million in 2024, the UNHCR emphasized that the change reflected "a sharp increase in the returns of refugees, mostly to Afghanistan, Syria, and Sudan."
"Many of the returns occurred under adverse circumstances and the reintegration conditions remain extremely challenging," said the agency.
Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), said that "in Afghanistan, millions were forcibly returned from neighboring Pakistan and Iran, and in [the Democratic Republic of] Congo some displacement camps were evacuated at gunpoint, sending thousands of families back to homes that no longer exist."
Of 2.9 million Afghans who were no longer considered forcibly displaced last year, most of their returns to their home country were "involuntary in nature due to changes in the policies of host countries."
In the US, the Trump administration last year terminated Temporary Protected Status for Afghan nationals, between 9,500 and 11,700 of whom were legally residing in the US. Hundreds of thousands of Afghans were deported from Iran, Pakistan, and Tajikistan last year.
"The first fall in global displacement in over a decade should be good news. Instead, it reflects misery on a historic scale," said David Milliband, president of the International Rescue Committee. "These numbers tell a story of both forced returns and forced displacement. People are returning to countries mired in crisis, most with no choice, with every route to safety collapsed around them."
The number of refugees who were successfully resettled dropped precipitously last year along with the number of people who were classified as displaced. Just 81,800 people found new homes through resettlement programs or sponsorship pathways, representing a year-on-year drop of more than half.
The top countries that continued to host refugees last year were Colombia, Turkey, and Germany, and more than 70% of refugees came from just six countries: Afghanistan, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, and Venezuela.
Egeland emphasized that while the number of forcibly displaced people fell last year, "the number of people who have fled their home because of violence and conflict has nearly tripled over the last 15 years."
"The 117.8 million people now violently displaced around the globe would constitute the world’s 13th-largest country by population. Larger than Egypt, Germany, or the UK. A human toll of vast proportions, and a collective failure of humanity," said Egeland.
The numbers released by UNHCR indicated that while millions "continued to be uprooted" last year, "many more endured protracted crises with no solution in sight. The world continues to fail civilians caught by conflict and violence."
UNHCR warned that among those who remain forcibly displaced, 7 in 10 refugees have been exiled from their homes for at least five years with little prospect of ever leaving refugee camps with precarious living conditions.
“For too many refugees, displacement starts as a lifeline but lasts a lifetime," said Barham Salih, the UN high commissioner for refugees. "Humanitarian aid saves lives, but it is not the end point and does not enable refugees to become active agents in control of their futures. We need a paradigm shift that creates a new sense of hope and opportunity for people fleeing war and persecution."
Salih called for a reduction by more than half, over the next decade, in the number of refugees who are reliant on humanitarian assistance and are living in temporary shelters.
"The initiative would expand opportunities for voluntary returns, humanitarian visas, and relocation, while transitioning refugees from aid dependency to self-reliance through access to education, healthcare, financial services, and labor markets," said the UNHCR.
The large numbers of people who have been forced from their homes—and in a rising number of cases, forced to return home under duress—"are almost impossible to comprehend," said Egeland. "And as an increasingly nationalistic world becomes increasingly desensitized to what it truly means to be forced to flee home, the gap between decision makers and donors and displaced people continues to widen. This cannot be accepted as the new normal."
“As humanitarians our work is to support displaced people in their hour of greatest need," he added. “But we cannot do this without a world that is willing to stand up for humanity... We must support diplomatic solutions to end crisis, and fund aid to relieve suffering. We must protect civilians and stand up for international humanitarian law. We must all remember our humanity.”
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Aid Groups Warn Excluding Lebanon From Ceasefire 'Risks Prolonging the Crisis'
"Until there is an end to all hostilities, across the entire region, no one will feel truly safe."
Apr 08, 2026
Humanitarian aid organizations warned Wednesday that the Iran ceasefire touted by US President Donald Trump as a monumental step toward peace is at risk of collapsing entirely if it doesn't halt Israel's bombardment of Lebanon, which reached its most intense phase yet in the hours after the two-week truce was announced.
David Miliband, president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee, said the ceasefire announcement late Tuesday was a "welcome step" but warned it was "partial, fragile, and incomplete," pointing to Trump and Israel's claim that Lebanon was not included in the deal's terms. Pakistan, the key mediator of the truce, has said Lebanon was part of the agreed-upon ceasefire, and a halt to Israeli attacks on the country was included in a widely circulated 10-point Iranian plan that Trump characterized as "a workable basis on which to negotiate."
Miliband said Wednesday that leaving "one front of the conflict burning risks prolonging the crisis, not resolving it."
Ahmad Alhendawi, Save the Children's regional director for the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe, similarly warned that the current ceasefire deal, as implemented, "is not enough."
"We're urgently calling for a definitive ceasefire for the wider region, which includes Lebanon, to protect children from further harm," said Alhendawi. "A whole generation of children bears the brunt of this conflict. A definitive ceasefire for the entire regional conflict, including Lebanon, is the only way to truly protect children’s lives and futures and end the suffering. The violence must end before more children suffer irreparable harm.”
Iranian officials have responded with outrage to Israel's intensified assault on Lebanon, which has killed hundreds of people on Wednesday alone and wounded many more. Abbas Araghchi, Iran's foreign minister, said the Trump administration "must choose—ceasefire or continued war via Israel."
"It cannot have both," he added. "The world sees the massacres in Lebanon. The ball is in the US court, and the world is watching whether it will act on its commitments."
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Iran has informed regional mediators that its participation in planned in-person talks in Pakistan's capital "is conditional on a ceasefire in Lebanon" as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to "continue to strike" the country.
"Sounds like somebody needs to rein in Israel ASAP," Brian Finucane, senior adviser to the US Program at the International Crisis Group, wrote on social media.
"The American people want this war to end and bombing downtown Beirut is not a path to peace."
Trump insisted to a PBS reporter on Wednesday that Lebanon was "not included in the deal," claiming the Israeli assault on the country is "a separate skirmish."
But top Iranian officials, aid organizations, and US lawmakers who support a lasting peace agreement view the conflicts across the region as interconnected.
“Aggression towards Lebanon is aggression towards Iran,” Gen. Seyed Majid Mousavi, aerospace commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said Wednesday.
US Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) urged the Trump administration "must immediately make clear to Israel that the ceasefire agreement is not and cannot be functional without a ceasefire in Lebanon."
"The American people want this war to end," Beyer added, "and bombing downtown Beirut is not a path to peace."
Amitabh Behar, executive director of Oxfam International, said in a statement that "until there is an end to all hostilities, across the entire region, no one will feel truly safe."
"Israel’s ongoing invasion in Lebanon, its destructive occupation of Palestinian territory, ground incursion and airstrikes in Syria, its continued attacks in Gaza, and violent attacks and territorial expansion in the West Bank are still continuing despite the provisional cessation of violence with Iran," said Behar. "This deadly toll across the Middle East is intolerable and must stop."
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Aid Group Warns US-Israeli War on Iran Has Unleashed ‘Triple Emergency’ With Devastating Consequences for Millions
“With global humanitarian needs already at record levels, further escalation of the conflict in the Middle East and wider region will have grave ramifications for crises across the world,” said one advocate.
Mar 20, 2026
The US-Israeli war against Iran has unleashed a "triple emergency" that is draining the global humanitarian aid system of resources and putting millions of the world's most vulnerable people at even greater risk, according to a dire warning issued Friday by the International Rescue Committee.
The war has already resulted in the deaths of thousands and the displacement of millions of people in Iran and Lebanon. But the IRC says that the ripple effects of the war are beginning to spread to conflict zones across the world.
The conflict has caused many nations in the region to partially or fully close their airspace, leaving critical cargo stranded.
Meanwhile, Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for US and Israeli attacks has disrupted the flow of more than 20% of the world’s oil exports, sharply raising transport costs and straining budgets that could go toward lifesaving aid.
“Medical aid is highly dependent on international transport,” said Willem Zuidema, Save the Children’s global supply chain director. “The blockage in the Strait of Hormuz, combined with spiking cost for insurance and fuel, is directly impacting patients in our health facilities, at the worst time possible.”
IRC said $130,000 worth of pharmaceutical aid intended for its humanitarian response to the conflict in Sudan has been left stranded in Dubai due to the strait's closure.
According to Save the Children, this delay has put 90 primary healthcare facilities across Sudan at risk of running low on supplies.
More than 400,000 children, the group estimated, could be affected by the inability to receive antibiotics, antimalarial drugs, pain and fever medications, and other treatments.
The group said it has been forced to deliver the aid using the much more costly method of transporting it across Jeddah, where it will be carried by sea freight to Sudan, which the group said could add as much as $1,000-2,000 per container.
The same is true of humanitarian zones in Afghanistan and Yemen, where treatments for thousands of children must now be delivered by air or by land, dramatically raising the costs.
The closure of the strait has also forced many vessels carrying aid to find alternative routes. IRC said its shipping partners have been forced to reroute their operations to instead travel around Africa's Cape of Good Hope, adding up to a month for ocean freight deliveries to war zones on the continent.
"What we are seeing is the war in Iran unleashing a triple emergency," said David Milliband, the president and CEO of IRC.
"First, a surge in humanitarian need, with Lebanon now the most visible humanitarian scar and one of the fastest-growing displacement crises in the world, with over one million people forced from their homes in weeks," he said.
"Second, a global economic shock, as disruptions to food, fuel, and fertilizer markets, putting up to 30% of fertilizer trade at risk, threatens more than 300 million people already facing acute food insecurity," said Milliband, and "third, a system under strain, with more than 60 conflicts stretching diplomatic attention and funding to a breaking point, pushing crises like Sudan and Gaza further down the list of priorities."
Milliband marveled at the priorities of the powers prosecuting the war. He pointed to a recent estimate from the Pentagon that the first six days of the war alone cost $11.3 billion, noting that "just $4 billion is enough to pay for treatment for every acutely malnourished child in the world."
Zuidema said that the "grave ripple effects" caused by the war are exacerbated by the fact that "governments are cutting vital foreign aid budgets."
He called on all parties to the war to cease hostilities and to adhere to their obligations under international law, including allowing the free flow of humanitarian aid.
“There should be no barriers to lifesaving supplies: Exemptions should be put in place to allow humanitarian supplies, fertilizer, and food to be able to move through the Strait of Hormuz,” Zuidema said. “With global humanitarian needs already at record levels, further escalation of the conflict in the Middle East and wider region will have grave ramifications for crises across the world.”
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