Global Report on Internal Displacement 2025

Regional Overviews

Middle East & North Africa
After a decrease between 2019 and 2022, the number of internal displacements associated with conflict and violence in the region increased significantly from 7 October 2023, mostly as hostilities between Israel and Palestinian non-state armed groups (NSAGs) escalated in the Gaza Strip. The trend continued in 2024, with more than 3.2 million displacements recorded in Palestine throughout the year. Given major data gaps, this is likely to be a significant underestimate. Attacks on areas which people were fleeing to led to further displacement. About 2 million people were still displaced at the end of the year, a figure in line with the previous year and a stark illustration of the fact that nearly all of Gaza’s population had already been displaced by the end of 2023. 
 
Conflict and violence also intensified and triggered significant displacement in other countries, including Lebanon and Syria. 
 
Despite a reduction in the new instances of displacement in other countries affected by conflict and violence including Yemen, Libya and Israel, the number of movements across the region as a whole reached its highest on record, at 5.1 million. Those who fled during the year joined many others already living in displacement, bringing the number of IDPs to around 16.4 million at the end of the year, also the highest on record for the region and 22 per cent of the global total. 
 
Disasters triggered fewer displacements than in 2023 when powerful earthquakes struck in Morocco and Syria. Around 599,000 movements were recorded in 2024, mostly linked to floods. Obtaining data on disaster displacement in the region continues to be a challenge, making estimates highly conservative. 

​Millions still living in displacement despite progress on solutions 
While significant displacements were reported in Lebanon, Palestine and Syria, in other countries the trends reduced. Yemen continued to experience a down- ward trend since a truce was agreed in 2022. Although the agreement has since expired, fighting has remained relatively limited. Localised clashes triggered more than 36,000 movements last year, most of which were in Al Hodeidah governorate.
 
The number of people living in displacement continued to grow, however, reaching 4.8 million as of the end of the year, the sixth-highest figure globally. IDPs, 80 per cent of whom are women and children, continued to struggle to generate income and access basic services. Some resorted to negative coping mechanisms such as moving to poorer quality shelters, skipping meals, dropping out of school, child labour and early marriage.
 
In response to these growing challenges, the government and the UN launched a fund that takes a development approach to facilitating durable solutions. The initiative, which runs from April 2024 to September 2025, entails conducting surveys to understand the needs and preferred solutions of IDPs, returnees and host communities. Local governments will also be trained to use the findings to inform policies and programmes to resolve displacement.
 
In Iraq, more than a million people were still living in displacement as of the end of 2024, of whom at least half had been displaced for at least a decade. Most were in the northern governorates of Ninewa, Dahuk and Erbil, where 18,000 of the 23,000 conflict displacements recorded countrywide in 2024 also took place. Many IDPs are still reluctant or unable to return to their areas of origin because of ongoing insecurity and a lack of reconstruction and basic services.
 
Iraq is, however, a notable example of government leadership and strong collaboration with the international community, which has led to a gradual reduction in the number of IDPs from a peak of 3.3 million in 2015. A Durable Solutions Task Force was set up back in 2020, and has been supporting solutions programming and the implementation of the government’s National Plan to End Displacement published a year after. The initiative, which is grounded in the IASC Framework on Durable Solutions for IDPs and the Humanitarian Country Team Protection Strategy, adopts a nexus approach to solutions to internal displacement.
 
The number of conflict displacements in Libya was its lowest since conflict broke out in 2011 at 340. Around 107,000 people were still living in displacement at the end of the year, slightly fewer than in 2023 and the lowest figure since 2013, mostly the result of continued progress on durable solutions since a ceasefire agreement was signed in October 2020. Around 74,000 remaining IDPs were on a pathway to solutions but still facing some challenges in doing so, including discrimination and lack of documentation.
 
Israel recorded 740 conflict displacements, far fewer than the 203,000 reported in 2023, almost all of them associated with the demolition of Bedouin homes in the southern Negev desert in May and November. Many of those affected had already been displaced in previous years. The number of people still living in displacement also fell from 200,000 in 2023 to 68,000 by the end of 2024. Some communities evacuated from areas near the Gaza Strip and Lebanon were able to return home and received financial support from the government to do so. Other areas were still under security restrictions, hampering returns. Those still displaced were living with friends and relatives, in hotels and temporary housing, and were receiving government grants to cover some of their expenses.
 
Global Report on Internal Displacement 2025. Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. Norwegian Refugee Council. Geneva, Switzerland.