Displacement is not one number

At a glance

Six measures - three different questions

Displacement statistics can describe legal or protection categories, people remaining displaced at a point in time, or movement events during a year. The differences matter.

1. Refugee-like situations are included within refugee statistics

UNHCR reported 41.6 million refugees globally at the end of 2025. The broad headline includes refugees under UNHCR mandate, other people in need of international protection, and Palestine refugees under UNRWA mandate. People in refugee-like situations sit within the UNHCR-mandate refugee population.

2. Internal-displacement stocks count people remaining displaced

IDMC estimated that 82.2 million people were living in internal displacement across 104 countries and territories at the end of 2025. The total fell slightly from 2024 but remained close to the record level.

3. Movement counts describe what happened during the year

IDMC recorded 62.2 million internal displacement movements during 2025. Conflict and violence generated more movements than disasters for the first time. Movements are not unique people.

4. Stock and flow are not the same unit

Some people in the year-end stock were displaced before 2025. Some people counted in the 2025 flow moved more than once and may not have remained displaced at year-end.

5. Causes differ sharply by region

Disasters dominated movement counts in East Asia and the Pacific. Conflict and violence dominated in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa.

Which measure answers which question?

The useful comparison is conceptual, not arithmetic. WSI does not add stocks and flows or turn unlike categories into one total-displacement ranking.