Conflict, natural disasters displaced nearly 60 million in 2021 – Repor

Conflict and natural disasters drove millions of people from their homes last year, bringing the total number of displaced people to a record high of nearly 60 million, according to a study released Thursday by NGOs.

Internally displaced people numbered 59.1 million in 2021, nearly half of6 whom were under 18 years old, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

Year on year, this figure – which therefore does not include refugees abroad – continues to grow, and a new record is expected to be set in 2022 due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24.

This is the second highest annual figure in a decade, behind 2020, which saw a record number of displacements due to a series of natural disasters.

“The year 2022 looks bleak,” including the war in Ukraine, IDMC director Alexandra Bilak warned at a press conference.

More than eight million people were internally displaced in Ukraine, more than two months after the invasion of the country by Russia, according to the UN.

The situation in the world “has never been so bad”, observed the secretary general of the NRC, Jan Egeland, who assures that “the world is falling apart”.

“The situation today is really incredibly much worse than our record figure suggests. We need world leaders to make a titanic shift in their thinking about conflict avoidance and resolution, to stop this spiraling human suffering,” he said.