Global displacement falls for first time in decade, UN says

The number of people forced to flee their homes due to conflict and persecution fell for the first time in a decade, although the scale of global displacement remains extremely high, according to the annual report by the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR).

The report said the total number of forcibly displaced people declined by 5.4 million, or 4%, in 2025 to 117.8 million. This included a drop in the number of refugees to 41.6 million and internally displaced persons to 68.6 million.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Barham Saleh said that despite the decline, the scale of the crisis remains “unacceptably high”.

At the same time, the pace of returns to places of origin increased significantly. In 2025, a total of 14.7 million people returned home, including 4.4 million refugees and 10.3 million internally displaced persons. The most notable increases in returns were recorded in Afghanistan, Sudan and Syria.

However, UNHCR stressed that in many cases returns were not voluntary, but driven by worsening conditions in host countries and involved people going back to unstable environments.

Around 70% of all refugees and people in need of international protection originate from six countries — Afghanistan, Venezuela, Syria, Sudan, Ukraine and South Sudan. The largest host countries were Colombia, hosting 2.8 million people, Germany (2.7 million), Türkiye (2.4 million), Uganda (1.9 million), Iran (1.7 million), Chad (1.5 million) and Pakistan (1.3 million).

The report also noted that a war in the Middle East that began in February 2026 displaced around one million people in Lebanon and 3.2 million people in Iran.

According to UNHCR data, there were approximately 4.5 million stateless people worldwide at the end of 2025, an increase of 3% compared with the previous year. At the same time, nearly 46,000 people in 24 countries were able to acquire citizenship or documentation, thereby resolving their stateless status.

By Tamilla Hasanova