Internal Displacement in 2025

IDMC's GRID 2026 release places the world's internally displaced population at 82.2 million at the end of 2025, down 1.5% from 2024's record 83.5 million. The modern era of the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre's (IDMC) Global Internal Displacement Database (GIDD) and its accompanying Global Report on Internal Displacement (GRID) began in 2016, with disaster figures comprehensively included from 2019 onward; 2025 is the first year in this series in which the year-end stock has fallen. The drop is small and arithmetic: large reported reductions in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Syria and Lebanon offset record new displacement elsewhere.

New conflict displacements during 2025 reached 32.3 million, the highest annual conflict flow on record and a 60% jump on 2024. People still displaced by disasters at year-end rose 37% to 13.6 million, also a record. So while the headline stock dropped, the underlying pressure on protection systems intensified along both dimensions.

The regional shifts are sharper than the global headline suggests. Sub-Saharan Africa's stock fell for the first time since IDMC began comprehensive reporting, the Americas reached a new high of 10.5 million, MENA accounted for 41% of global conflict flow, and South Asia's conflict flow grew nearly 49-fold to 548,000. For the first time in the GIDD series, conflict and violence overtook disasters as the leading driver of new internal displacement, a reversal of the pattern that has held since 2019. External coverage by The Guardian describes the year's figures as the highest since records began. IDMC's own framing is direct: as conflicts intensify, "it is often the same people who are uprooted again and again, yet the systems meant to protect them are being dismantled."

Where 2025 happened

The geography of the year divides cleanly. Conflict displacement concentrated in a belt running from West Africa through the Sahel, the Horn of Africa, the eastern Mediterranean, and into South Asia. Disaster displacement concentrated on the other side of the world, the Pacific typhoon corridor through the Philippines, China and Indonesia, with a separate large signal from Pakistan's mid-year monsoon.

The map above is centred on the conflict-and-disaster axis that defines 2025: the African / MENA / South Asia belt where the year's record conflict flow concentrated, and the East Asia / Pacific corridor where its disaster flow concentrated. Toggle Conflict / Disaster / All to isolate either narrative.

The globe is centred on Africa to keep the dominant 2025 story, DR Congo, Sudan, Palestine, Syria, the broader Sahel, in a single frame. The Philippines (10.7M new disaster displacements) and the rest of East Asia / Pacific sit on the eastern horizon; the Americas (Haiti, Colombia, Ecuador) on the western horizon.

Stock dips for the first time; flow keeps climbing

Global IDP stock more than doubled across the decade IDMC has tracked, from 38.9 million in 2016 to a record 83.5 million in 2024. The first three years of the series (2016–2018) showed only modest growth, almost entirely conflict-driven. The jump to 49.1 million in 2019 reflects IDMC's first comprehensive year of disaster-displacement reporting, not a sudden uptick in actual displacement. From 2019 onward the line is monotonically upward, until 2025, the first year in the series where stock falls.

Where the global stock sits, year by year

The 82.2 million headline figure masks a geography that has shifted markedly over the decade. Sub-Saharan Africa peaked at 38.7 million in 2024 before falling to 31.6 million in 2025. The Middle East and North Africa held a stable 11 to 17 million band across the series. South Asia's 2025 number nearly doubled on the 2024 figure as protracted disaster displacement reclassified into stock. The Americas reached an all-time high of 10.5 million, the only region in the dataset on a continuous upward trajectory since 2018.

Record high, with DR Congo at the centre

The 2025 conflict flow is the most concentrated in the GIDD series. The Democratic Republic of Congo recorded 9.75 million new conflict displacements, IDMC's headline figure for the year and the country's own historical record, up from 5.35M in 2024. DRC alone accounts for roughly 30% of global conflict flow. Palestine added 2.76M as escalating violence and protracted displacement continued. Sudan contributed 1.73M, Haiti 0.98M, South Sudan 0.86M. Regionally, MENA generated 13.4 million new conflict displacements, 41% of the global total, driven by ongoing escalation across multiple countries in the region. Sub-Saharan Africa added 14.4 million.

The world's storms landed on the Pacific

Disaster flow in 2025, 29.9M new displacements, was down sharply from 2024's 45.8M, but the headline obscures a geographic concentration. East Asia and the Pacific generated 17.5M new disaster displacements alone, over half the global total. The Philippines, China and Indonesia all recorded their highest disaster displacement in a decade as powerful typhoons and end-of-year storms struck the region in sequence. South Asia's disaster flow halved to 4.6M after a milder monsoon.

Top 8 single events by new disaster displacement, 2025. Source: IDMC GIDD disaster events feed.

Eight of the ten biggest IDP populations remain 100% conflict-driven

Stock reflects what flow leaves behind. Sudan remains the world's largest internal displacement crisis at 9.1M, even after the 2.4M reduction. Colombia (7.2M), Afghanistan (7.0M), Syria (6.0M), Bangladesh (5.5M) and DR Congo (4.9M) round out the top six. In the top 10, conflict accounts for 100% of stock in seven countries (Sudan, Colombia, Syria, Yemen, Ukraine, Somalia, Burkina Faso), 95% in Nigeria, 93% in Myanmar, and 87% in DR Congo. Only Bangladesh is majority disaster-driven (89%), and the Bangladesh figure is the year's most surprising number, jumping from 0.59M in 2024 to 5.5M in 2025 (+831%) as protracted monsoon and cyclone displacement reclassified into the year-end stock figure.

Bangladesh climbs; Sudan, DRC, Syria descend

The biggest 2024 to 2025 stock movements split sharply between disaster-driven growth and conflict-driven returns. Bangladesh's +4.95M, Afghanistan's +1.49M and Cambodia's +0.52M reflect monsoon, drought and conflict displacement settling into the protracted column. Sudan, DR Congo, Syria, Lebanon and Chad show large stock reductions driven partly by reported returns, partly by IDMC methodology revisions, and partly by cross-border refugee outflows that remove people from the IDP count without bringing them home.

Twenty-two fewer countries reporting

147 countries reported 2025 figures to IDMC as of the API refresh on 15 May 2026, against 169 in 2024. IDMC routinely revises previous years upward as additional national reporting arrives, meaning the 2025 numbers in this analysis are an early cut, not a final.

Several known crisis contexts have not yet submitted full 2025 estimates: a subset of Sahel countries with active conflict, Pacific island states routinely exposed to slow-onset disasters, and a small number of Central and West African countries. IDMC's near-real-time IDU (Internal Displacement Updates) feed for the same window indicates that these are reporting delays, not absences of displacement. Headline numbers should be expected to move when GRID 2027 publishes the full revision next May.

What 2025 means for 2026 humanitarian programming