New UN report confirms historic levels of forced displacement as 118 million forced to flee — IRC says

New York, June 10, 2026 - New figures released by the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, show a slight decline in the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide - but the numbers are still historic highs. The International Rescue Committee (IRC) warns that the numbers tell a story of forced returns as well as forced displacement, as millions returned to countries wracked by conflict and crisis as the protections they rely on - asylum, resettlement, and aid - were stripped away.

The figures show that 118 million people remain forcibly displaced - a number that has doubled over the past decade, a historic high even with the slight decline this year largely driven by record but fragile returns. The IRC said these figures are the human face of the New World Disorder - the growing gap between escalating humanitarian crises and a shrinking international response. The IRC's 2026 Emergency Watchlist, issued in December, predicted this convergence of conflict, climate shocks, and weakening international cooperation. IRC's Midyear Watchlist, released this week, found the trend is accelerating, and the global displacement numbers released today confirm that reality.

David Miliband, IRC President and CEO, said: "The first fall in global displacement in over a decade should be good news. However, the numbers reflect misery on a historic scale - people returned to countries mired in crisis, most with no choice, while every route to safety collapsed around them. Cuts to aid funding, resettlement support, and the basic systems of protection have left refugees and displaced people with nowhere to turn. Returns without resources are not a solution; they are displacement redoubled."

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) warned that the decline masks a collapse in solutions:

• Roughly 14 million returns were matched by nearly 14 million newly displaced. A revolving door is not a sustainable equilibrium.
• Record returns were driven by policy, pressure and conflict - not peace. Millions returned not to stability but to fragility: countries still gripped by violence, collapsed services and climate disaster - at the very moment the share of global aid reaching fragile and conflict-affected states has collapsed from 43% in 2013 to 25% in 2024. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, 3.6 million displaced people returned in 2025 to a country that is at once one of the world's largest displacement crises, a country of asylum that saw a 15-fold increase in asylum-seekers, and the epicenter of an Ebola outbreak. Returns without resources are not a solution - they deepen need and delay recovery.
• Resettlement shrunk to its lowest level since 2011 - when the world had a third as many refugees. Only 81,800 people were resettled out of 2.9 million in need.
• Asylum backlogs grew for the ninth consecutive year, impacting 9 million people awaiting a decision on their future.
• The same communities face conflict and climate displacement at once. Nearly half of all new internal displacements in 2025 were disaster-related - and in 88% of countries experiencing conflict displacement, climate disaster struck the same year. In South Sudan, nearly 200,000 refugees returned from Sudan in 2025, returning to a country where conflict newly displaced more than 330,000 people, and flooding drove over a third of all new displacement. Polycrisis is hitting people who have already fled once, forcing them to flee again.
• 70% of refugees are trapped in protracted displacement - five years or more in exile with no route home and no route forward. Nearly all come from a handful of countries - Afghanistan, DRC, Myanmar, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria - that the IRC Emergency Watchlist states are deeply affected by aid cuts.
• Nearly 70% of refugees are hosted in low- and middle-income countries - not, as often assumed, in wealthier nations.
• Nearly 60% of the displaced never crossed a border - trapped within the crises they fled, and increasingly redisplaced within their own communities by climate shocks and shifting conflict lines.

These figures reflect a world in which conflicts are lasting longer, violence is spreading further, and international support is failing to keep pace with growing crisis, the IRC warned. There are more conflicts today than at any point since the Second World War.

The IRC said that the scale of global displacement requires not only emergency assistance, but sustained political and humanitarian commitment to help people rebuild their lives. Through programs ranging from mobile health clinics in remote conflict zones to refugee resettlement and education services, the IRC works to help displaced families access safety, healthcare, and opportunity. The IRC is calling on governments to reverse cuts to humanitarian aid, preserve access to asylum and refugee resettlement, and strengthen the systems designed to protect displaced people.

David Miliband, IRC President and CEO, continued, "For the people of Sudan, Lebanon and Afghanistan, it is World Refugee Day every day. Millions went back this year; few went home. The figures show diplomacy in retreat, disorder at record levels, and protections diluted. The shock absorbers are being weakened at precisely the moment that shocks are growing. The question is whether the world has the will to rebuild the systems that protect displaced people - or keep dismantling them."

The IRC's World Refugee Day campaign theme this year is "Close the Distance," highlighting the need to narrow the gap between growing crisis and the global response.

For more information or to set up interviews with IRC leadership or experts, contact [email protected].

NOTES TO EDITORS The IRC's 2026 Emergency Watchlist Midyear Update, The New World Disorder: More Shocks, Fewer Shock Absorbers, is available here. World Refugee Day is June 20, 2026. The IRC's WRD 2026 campaign theme is Close the Distance.