——- Reports records 1.2mn IDPs in Pakistan
——- Numbers increased over 50% in last five years
——- Pakistan accounted for around half of total displacements in South Asia
DM Monitoring
NEW YORK: Conflicts and disasters around the world have caused nearly 76 million internally displaced people (IDPs) to flee their homes for refuge by the end of 2023.
The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, in its annual Global Report on Internal Displacement, recorded a total of 75.9 million IDPs by the end of the last year, pushing the number upwards following the conflicts in Sudan and Gaza, and numerous disaster events unfolding worldwide.
According to the NGO monitor, the number of such individuals increased more than 50% in the last five years and the colossal figure was a new end-of-year high by its count. The figure bumped up from 71.1 million, which was recorded at the end of 2022.
The IDMC, in its report, revealed that 68.3 million people worldwide were displaced by conflict and violence, and 7.7 million by disasters.
The report mentioned that around 3.7 million internal displacements were reported in South Asia in 2023. “Disasters triggered 3.6 million, the lowest figure since 2018.”
From 2014 to 2023 in Pakistan, at least 1,216,000 (1.2 million) individuals became IDPs due to disasters, while 23,000 were displaced because of conflicts.
“Pakistan recorded the second highest number of IDPs in the region, with about 1.2 million people displaced by disasters,” the report stated, highlighting that most people were “forced to flee their homes during the 2022 floods”. Meanwhile, the data related to internal displacement (movements) stated that at least 732,000 internal displacement took place due to disasters, while 2,800 were attributed to conflicts from 2014 to 2023.
