The number of people forcibly displaced around the world stood at more than 117.8 million at the end of 2025 due to conflict, violence, and persecution, according to the UN refugee agency's latest annual report.
Barham Salih, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, launched the agency's flagship Global Trends Report on Thursday. The findings show that forced displacement worldwide fell for the first time in a decade, but still remains at an unacceptably high level.
The report estimates that some 68.7 million people were internally displaced at the end of 2025, while 41.6 million were refugees in other countries.
In 2025, the global refugee population shrank by 3 percent compared with the end of 2024, a shift attributed to a sharp rise in returns across several of the world's largest displacement crises, including Afghanistan, Syria and Sudan, as well as returns of internally displaced people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Syria.
However, many of the returns occurred under adverse circumstances to fragile contexts where the reintegration conditions remain extremely challenging, the report pointed out.
Resolving some of the world's major conflicts would enable millions more refugees to return safely and in dignity, Salih said.
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, which was adopted on July 28, 1951, and entered into force on April 22, 1954.
117.8 mln people forcibly displaced at end of 2025: UNHCR
117.8 mln people forcibly displaced at end of 2025: UNHCR
