Record of over 60M new people internally displaced in 2022: Report

By Beyza Binnur Donmez

GENEVA (AA) — Nearly 61 million new internally displaced people were documented last year, a 60% rise over the previous year, according to a recent report by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC).

This rise of about 60.9 million is "the highest ever reported," and reflects the volume of both fresh and recurring displacements, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in a statement on the by the Geneva-based IDMC.

The Global Report on Internal Displacement (GRID) 2023, found that conflict and violence triggered 28.3 million displacements, the most in a decade, with Ukraine accounting for 60% of the total.

It highlighted food insecurity as a driver, consequence, and potential barrier to solutions to internal displacement.

Every year, disasters force millions of people to flee their homes, the report noted, adding that last year, events such as floods in Pakistan and Typhoon Noru in the Philippines resulted in 32.6 million internal displacements, the highest annual figure on record.

The figure is likely to climb as the frequency, duration, and intensity of natural disasters intensify due to climate change, it added, warning that if no coordinated climate action is taken, as many as 216 million people might become internal climate migrants by 2050, citing a World Bank forecast.

"We are seeing the continuing trend of unprecedented large-scale disasters causing significant loss of life, destruction of homes and livelihoods and new levels of displacements," said IOM Director General Antonio Vitorino.

"Enhancing our common efforts on climate action and investing in safe, regular and orderly migration pathways is more important than ever," Vitorino said.

He added that determining the needs of people forced to move because of conflict, violence, and disasters is "crucial to ensure humanitarian assistance."