Global Report on Internal Displacement 2025

​Regional Overviews
 
The Americas
The number of internal displacements in the Americas reached a record 14.5 million in 2024, more than the previous five years combined. Thirteen million were associated with disasters and 1.5 million with conflict and violence. The United States reported the highest figure with 11 million disaster-related movements, nearly a quarter of the global total, mostly the result of major hurricanes that led to mass evacuations. 
 
Brazil also reported its highest figure on record, at 1.1 million. Most were triggered by floods in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, where above-average rains inundated an area the size of the United Kingdom. Elsewhere in the region there were fewer flood displacements than in 2023. 
 
The number of displacements linked to conflict and violence more than doubled to reach nearly 1.5 million. More than 60 per cent occurred in Haiti, where growing gang violence fuelled an urban exodus from Port-au-Prince. Colombia recorded nearly 388,000 movements, on par with the last three years. 
 
Around 9.6 million people were living in internal displacement across the region at the end of the year, 87 per cent of them as a result of conflict and violence in Colombia and Haiti. This represents a significant increase from the 6.3 million reported in 2023, in part the result of better data availability and a revision of figures by the government of Colombia. 
 
Hurricanes trigger record displacement 
The ninth successive hurricane season with above-average activity triggered more than 80 per cent of the disaster displacements reported in the Americas in 2024.
 
Hurricane Beryl was the earliest category 5 storm ever recorded in the Atlantic basin. It caused widespread devastation across several island countries and territories and triggered significant displacement relative to their population size. Grenada recorded 3,100 movements and St Vincent and the Grenadines nearly 1,800. 
 
Beryl then moved north and hit parts of the Yucatán peninsula, triggering 8,000 movements in Mexico before making landfall in the United States at the end of June. Most of the nearly 1.6 million displacements linked to the storm there took place in Texas. Eastern parts of the state had already experienced heavy rainfall and flash flooding between late April and early June that trigged more than 448,000 movements, the highest flood displacement figure on record for the country.
 
In late September, hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida where it led to more than a million displacements. As the storm moved north, it also triggered 788,000 movements in South Carolina and 491,000 in North Carolina. Most of the 2.5 million displacements associated with Helene were pre-emptive evacuations, but it was still the deadliest storm to affect the continental United States since hurricane Katrina in 2005.
 
As communities were still recovering from Helene, the National Weather Service issued alerts on 7 October for a tropical storm that developed into hurricane Milton. The approaching category 5 storm prompted authorities in Florida to issue mandatory evacuation orders that led to around 5.9 million movements. Some petrol stations ran out of fuel as people fled. Most people sought refuge in nearby inland areas, increasing some counties’ population density by up to 40 per cent.
 
By the time it made landfall on 10 October, Milton had reduced in intensity to a category 3 storm, but it struck some areas that Helene had already hit, setting back some evacuees’ recovery. After the declaration of a major disaster the next day, the Federal Emergency Management Agency began to provide shelter assistance, food and water to those displaced. Early estimates suggested more than 7,800 homes had been damaged or destroyed, prolonging the displacement of those affected, but without comprehensive data, it was difficult to determine how many people were still displaced at the end of the year.
 
Hurricanes also triggered significant movements in Cuba, which recorded the region’s third-highest disaster displacement figure, at 480,000. After escaping the full force of Helene, which triggered 1,000 displacements, hurricanes Oscar and Rafael hit the country in October and November, triggering 144,000 and 334,000, respectively. The storms struck opposite ends of the island less than three weeks apart, stretching the emergency response.
 
Oscar prompted pre-emptive evacuations from low-lying areas at it approached eastern Cuba. It hit the Guantánamo province hardest, causing floods, landslides and significant damage that left 37,000 people still living in displacement at the end of the year.
 
Rafael, the strongest November hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico in nearly 40 years, swept through the island’s west- ern provinces, where its anticipated strength led to thousands of pre-emptive evacuations. Nearly 100,000 movements were recorded in the capital, Havana. Artemisa province suffered most infrastructure damage, including almost 20,000 houses.
 
A few days after Rafael, two strong earth- quakes struck Cuba. No displacement data was made available for these events, but the overlapping effects of the consecutive disasters affected the national electricity grid, which in turn hindered access to clean water given the widespread use of electric pumps. This, combined with disruption to healthcare services, increased the risk of further waterborne diseases as the country was experiencing a dengue outbreak.
 
Global Report on Internal Displacement 2025. Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. Norwegian Refugee Council. Geneva, Switzerland.