The UN's Refugee Agency said forced displacement of people due to conflict or persecution fell in 2025 for the first time in a decade. In its annual report released Thursday, however, the agency warned that 118 million people who had to flee their homes or nations is still alarmingly high, per the AP. A look at the agency's "Global Trends" report on refugees and displaced people, by the numbers:
- 118 million: The total number of people forcibly displaced by conflict, violence, or persecution at the end of 2025 was 117.8 million. The figure includes refugees, asylum seekers, the internally displaced, and other groups in need of international protection. It's the first time in a decade that statistic fell. Behind the decline is both an increase in people who returned home and the fact that many refugees acquired citizenship in their host countries, among other reasons, said the UN agency's chief statistician. Barham Salih, the UN's high commissioner for refugees, warned that the number of those displaced globally, mostly by conflict, was still unacceptably high.
- 39%: That's the percentage of children among 41.6 million refugees last year.
- 69 million: There were 68.7 million people displaced within their own nations last year. The ongoing war in Sudan was behind the largest displacement in the world, with 9.1 million people forced to flee their homes. Colombia, Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan also have large displaced populations.
- 7 out of 10: That's how many refugees have lived in exile for five years or more, often trapped in sprawling camps in poor nations. The agency aims to slash by half the number of refugees in protracted displacement who are dependent on humanitarian assistance by 2035.
- 4.5 million: That's the number of stateless people, of which the Rohingya from Myanmar make up the largest group. The majority of stateless people live in Bangladesh, Ivory Coast, Thailand, and Myanmar. Only 46,000 acquired citizenship in 2025.
- 82,000: This number of resettled refugees fell sharply from 188,000 in 2024. That's a fraction of those in need, Salih said, as he urged governments to expand legal pathways for refugees to be relocated. "Every dangerous sea crossing and every death in the desert represents a failure of the international community," Salih said. "The human cost of the failure is measured not with statistics but with lives."
- 3: The trio of Syria, Afghanistan, and Sudan saw 90% of their 4.4 million refugees return home in 2025. The number was the second highest since the UN agency began keeping records six decades ago.
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