War, climate saw tens of millions internally displaced in 2020

A key group that monitors internal displacement reported on Thursday that violence and disasters — often caused or worsened by the impact of climate change — forced people to relocate within their countries more than 40 million times last year, the highest such tally in over a decade.

Conflicts and natural disasters forced someone to flee within their own country every second of last year, pushing the number of people living in internal displacement to tens of milions of people. This picture shows dozens of shelters made by Central African refugees who fled from Bangassou to Ndu, Bas-Uele Province, Democratic Republic of Congo, 21 January 2021. © AFP - Alexis Huguet

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC,) in its latest annual global report, says a record 55 million people were living away from their homes but within their countries at the end of last year, as storms and floods, as well as both protracted and new conflicts, drove up the figures that have been growing for more than a decade. Sometimes people have moved two or three times. 

The Geneva-based center, which is part of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC,) said the number of internally displaced was more than twice that of refugees — those who flee to another country — at the end of last year. The group cautioned that the figures were likely a “significant underestimate” because Covid-19 travel restrictions impeded the collection of data.

Pleased to contribute to the excellent #GRID2021 from @IDMC_Geneva 2020 saw intense storms and persistent conflict. 40.5 million new displacements were triggered by disasters and violence, a ten-year high. This is a key issue for national #DRR strategieshttps://t.co/soQokxUobm pic.twitter.com/pVf3QAUZ0X

— Mami Mizutori (@HeadUNDRR) May 20, 2021

“It’s shocking that someone was forced to flee their home inside their own country every single second last year,” said NRC secretary-general Jan Egeland. “We are failing to protect the world’s most vulnerable people from conflict and disasters.” 

Escalating violence

Of those displaced at the end of the year, some 48 million people had fled conflict and violence and 7 million had escaped from disasters, the group said. 

Hundreds of people, including many foreign workers, were evacuated by air and sea while thousands of locals walked to nearby districts following the jihadist attack in Mozambique's Palma last month. Alfredo Zuniga AFP/File

The center pointed to escalating violence and wider activity from extremist groups in countries like Ethiopia, Mozambique and Burkina Faso last year, and ongoing wars in places like Congo, Syria and Afghanistan. It also noted intense cyclone seasons in the Americas, Asia and the Pacific, and long rainy seasons in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, saying such weather woes uprooted millions.

• One million in Burkina Faso displaced by violence, amid Covid-19, climate change

Overall, the highest number of internally displaced people last year was in China, where more than five million people were forced into internal displacement in 2020 as a result of floods and other natural disasters.

Philippines and Bangladesh also regularly face floods and authorities are forced to evacuate areas due to rising waters.