Global Report on Internal Displacement 2025

Regional Overviews
 
Europe & Central Asia
Europe and Central Asia recorded 846,000 internal displacements in 2024. Disasters accounted for 358,000, the second highest figure on record for the region, most of them triggered by weather-related hazards such as storms, floods and wildfires. Ten countries reported their highest disaster displacement figures since data became available, particularly Kazakhstan which suffered its worst floods in 80 years. 
 
Conflict and violence triggered 488,000 movements, all of them associated with the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The latter accounted for 306,000, fewer than in the previous two years, although it remains unclear whether this change is due to a decrease in displacements or a drop in the availability of data. The figure for Russia tripled to its highest on record, at 182,000. 
 
Around 5.9 million people were living in internal displacement as a result of conflict and disasters across the region at the end of the year. Nearly 62 per cent, or 3.7 million people, had been uprooted by the conflict in Ukraine. Other countries, mostly in the Caucasus and the Balkans, were still hosting hundreds of thousands of people displaced by previous conflicts. Around 538,000 people were still displaced in Türkiye after the February 2023 earthquakes. 
 
A year of weather- related disasters 
The largest disaster displacement event of the year took place in Kazakhstan and Russia between March and May. A combination of rapid snowmelt and seasonal rains caused severe flooding that triggered more than 120,000 and 43,000 movements respectively, by far the highest disaster displacement figures on record for both countries. Most of the movements in Russia took place in Orenburg oblast as a result of a dam burst that flooded the city of Orsk and inundated thousands of homes.
 
Heavy rainfall associated with storm Orinoco in early June led several rivers in southern Germany to burst their banks. Dam breaks were reported and dykes failed to contain and redirect floodwaters that threatened villages, triggering about 3,200 evacuations in Bavaria and almost 1,600 in Baden-Württemberg.
 
Above-average snow in the high Alps also melted rapidly in June just as heavy rains fell, causing significant flooding and landslides in Switzerland. The canton of Valais, where the soil was already saturated by frequent rains, was badly affected, triggering evacuations. Alerts were also issued in areas around Lake Constance and the canton of Ticino, where people were evacuated. The nearly 1,100 displacements countrywide in 2024 was by far the highest figure on record for Switzerland and almost as high as the total for the past decade. 
 
While other parts of Europe were experiencing wet conditions, Greece recorded extreme temperatures that contributed to kickstart the wildfire season. Large-scale fires triggered over 60,000 movements during the year, making it the country second-most affected by disaster displacement in the region after Kazakhstan. 
 
The largest events led to 35,000 evacuations in the metropolitan area of Athens, including the whole town of Marathon, in mid-August. The same area was also affected by wildfires in August 2023, when a similar number of movements were recorded. Recurrent fires since 2017 have burnt 37 per cent of the area’s forests, heightening the risk of flash floods and landslides.
 
Storm Boris brought another wave of flooding to central and eastern Europe in mid-September. Up to five times the monthly average precipitation fell in various countries, causing dams to burst, rivers to overflow and wide- spread damage.More than 72,000 internal displacements were reported across Austria, the Czech Republic, Italy, Moldova, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. 
 
Poland was the most affected, with almost 44,000, nearly all of which were in the form of evacuations in the city of Nysa in the Opole region, where authorities issued orders after the Topola dam burst. Further evacuations took place across southern areas of the country.
 
More than 21,000 evacuations also took place in the Czech Republic, mostly in the Moravia-Silesia region. It was the second-largest disaster displacement event in the country, after another storm that blew through central Europe in 2013.
 
Boris was responsible for the highest September rainfall ever recorded in Austria, where five consecutive days of downpours led to flooding that triggered nearly 4,000 displacements in Lower Austria and the capital, Vienna.
 
As the storm moved south, it prompted almost 2,500 evacuations in Italy’s northern region of Emilia-Romagna. 
 
Two further floods triggered another 5,100 movements in the same region in mid-October, some of which affected the same communities. Some had also suffered the impacts of flooding in 2023, but lessons learned and preparedness efforts such as floodwater management reduced the extent of the disaster despite greater rainfall, according to the regional government.
 
Boris also triggered 400 displacements in Romania, but its impacts led authorities to take more stringent measures to prepare for a second wave of flooding on 29 September, including more than 6,000 pre-emptive evacuations.
 
The Valencia region of Spain was hit by the deadliest floods in Europe since 1967 in October. The event triggered 3,900 displacements, a conservative estimate that only captures people who sought refuge in shelters. The floods, driven by intense rains that some researchers have attributed to the warming of the Mediterranean Sea, caused widespread damage including to power and trans- port infrastructure, which hampered rescue and relief efforts.
 
Delays in communicating local early warnings meant they did not reach communities early enough to prevent loss of life and property.404 Regional authorities acknowledged shortcomings in preparedness and announced the creation of an early warning unit to mitigate similar events in the future.
 
A few weeks later, heavy downpours triggered floods in Málaga, in the Andalucía region. Building on the experiences in Valencia and other communities affected by floods throughout the year, the city undertook 4,200 evacuations to prevent loss of life and injuries. Nearly 3,700 people were still living in displacement as a result of disasters in Spain at the end of the year, all of them from the floods in Valencia. 
 
Global Report on Internal Displacement 2025. Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. Norwegian Refugee Council. Geneva, Switzerland.