On May 14, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, an NGO established in 1998 by the Norwegian Refugee Council to monitor internally displaced persons (IDPs), released its annual “Global Report on Internal Displacement” which provides statistics regarding IDPs for the year 2023. The report does not paint a pretty picture.
IDPs are people living inside the borders of their own country, but because of conflict, violence, or disaster, are forced to live away from home—for example in a refugee camp. For 2023, the total number of IDPs was a record 75.9 million, an increase of 51% over the last five years. Of that number, 68.3 million were the result of conflict and violence, a 9% increase over 2022. The countries most affected were: Sudan, 9.1 million; Syria, 7.2 million; Democratic Republic of the Congo, 6.7 million; Colombia, 5.1 million; and Yemen, 4.5 million. In the Gaza Strip, there were a total of 1.7 million IDPs, approximately 83% of its 2.1 million resident Palestinians. IDPs due to disaster were 7.7 million, with the countries most affected being: Afghanistan, 1.5 million; Pakistan, 1.2 million; Türkiye, 882,000; Ethiopia, 881,000; and China, 639,000.
