110 million people displaced

Some 110 million people have had to flee their homes because of conflict, persecution, or human rights violations, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said.

The war in Sudan, which has displaced nearly 2 million people since April, is but the latest in a long list of crises that have led to the record-breaking figure.

“It’s quite an indictment on the state of our world,” Filippo Grandi, who leads the UN Refugee Agency, told reporters in Geneva ahead of the publication of UNHCR’s Global Trends Report for 2022.

Last year alone, an additional 19 million people were forcibly displaced including more than 11 million who fled Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in what became the fastest and largest displacement of people since World War II.

“We are constantly confronted with emergencies,” Mr. Grandi said. Last year the Agency recorded 35 emergencies, three to four times more than in previous years. “Very few make your headlines,” Mr. Grandi added, arguing that the war in Sudan fell off most front pages after Western citizens were evacuated.