Although global forced displacement remains alarmingly high, it decreased last year for the first time in a decade. At the end of 2025, one in every 70 people—1.4 percent of the world’s population—was forcibly displaced due to conflict, violence, human rights violations, or events that seriously disturbed public order. The total number of displaced people decreased to 117.8 million in 2025, down from over 123 million people in 2024.
The number of internally displaced people (IDPs) around the world reached 71.1 million across 110 countries and territories at the end of 2022, a sharp increase of 20 percent from the previous year, according to a new report released Thursday. The Global Report on Internal Displacement 2023 (GRID 2023) by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) says rapidly escalating conflict and violence in countries such as Ukraine and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and climate related disasters such as flooding in Pakistan forced millions of people to flee in the past year.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has begun rolling out food distributions to nearly 900,000 refugees in Ethiopia, following a full revamp of the safeguards and controls in its refugee operations. WFP said Monday that families living in refugee camps across five regions are receiving food parcels for the first time since the UN agency paused food distributions in June 2023, following reports of large-scale diversions.
With the onset of the rainy season, severe flooding in Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Niger and Nigeria has significantly worsened the situation of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in affected areas, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR). UNHCR spokesman William Spindler on Friday reminded government authorities of the importance of including displaced people in national response plans.
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The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said on Friday that some 400,000 Syrians have returned from neighboring countries since the fall of the Bashar al-Assad government on December 8 last year. Over the same period, more than one million internally displaced persons (IDPs) inside Syria have also returned, bringing the total number of Syrians who have gone home to over 1.4 million.
A new study by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) warns that millions of Ukrainian refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) face an uncertain future as Ukraine enters its third year of war with Russia and its battle for survival risks becoming a protracted crisis. Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is seeking to clarify the fate of 23,000 persons whose families have no news of them, either because they have been captured, killed, or because they lost contact after fleeing their homes.
More than ten months into the Gaza war, civilians are crammed into an ever-shrinking space without adequate access to water, food, sanitation or health care. They are repeatedly uprooted by evacuation orders, which also disrupt the aid centers that are supposed to assist them. More than 88 percent of Gaza has been placed under evacuation orders or declared a "no-go zone" by Israeli security forces, confining up to 1.9 million internally displaced people (IDPs) to about 11 percent of the tiny territory.
The humanitarian situation in the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, DR Congo) has reached devastating levels as cyclical violence perpetrated by armed groups and subsequent displacement continues to impact millions of vulnerable civilians, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) warned Saturday. The UN agency also expresses deep concern for the dire living conditions and human rights violations, including gender-based violence (GBV), faced by over 6.2 million internally displaced people (IDPs).
DONARE FAQs presents a selection of frequently asked questions about humanitarian crises, introducing the basic features and contexts of humanitarian emergencies.
According to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), there were 122.1 million forcibly displaced people by the end of April 2025 — up from 120 million at the same time last year, but down from the record high of 123.2 million at the end of 2024. In a report released Thursday, UNHCR stated that the number of people displaced by war, violence, and persecution worldwide is "untenably high," especially given the drying up of humanitarian funding. The only bright spot is a pickup in some returns, notably to Syria.
The number of internally displaced people (IDPs) reached a record 83.4 million at the end of 2024, according to the new Global Report on Internal Displacement released on Tuesday by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC). The total is more than double the number just six years ago, and equivalent to the population of Germany.
Get informed, Donate, Give attention - DONARE is an information platform focused on donations, humanitarian aid and humanitarian crises worldwide. On our website you will find the latest humanitarian news, background information on humanitarian work, aid organizations, humanitarian emergencies and details on how you can help, whether as a donor or through other means. DONARE stands by the most vulnerable people.
Donations can make a big difference and are desperately needed, but there are many more ways to support humanitarian work and to have an impact. Why not help those in dire need? If you are looking for some ideas, how to support people trapped in humanitarian crises, here they are.
The DONARE FAQs section offers curated responses to frequently asked questions about humanitarian action, including topics such as humanitarian aid, humanitarian crises, humanitarian actors, humanitarian funding, and international humanitarian law. Here, you will find a complete list of all the questions addressed.
A refugee is a person that is compelled to leave his place of habitual residence in order to seek refuge outside his country of origin or nationality due to persecution, war, conflict, violence, severe human rights violations, events seriously disturbing public order, or other reasons that have made it impossible or dangerous for him or her to remain.
The United Nations humanitarian chief has warned that millions of people across the world will die because of a critical crisis in global humanitarian funding. The worsening crisis has been triggered by brutal funding cuts to humanitarian aid by the new United States administration, which took office at the end of January 2025 and has eliminated most American humanitarian funding and is dismantling the world's largest government aid agency.
Vulnerable groups in humanitarian crises may include women and girls, children, refugees and displaced persons, LGBTI people, elderly people, people with disabilities, people with acute or chronic diseases, religious or ethnic minorities, and indigenous peoples. These populations may face additional risks and challenges during crisis situations, and may require targeted assistance and support to address their specific needs. Humanitarian emergencies can exacerbate the existing vulnerabilities of these groups.
The people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are suffering from one of the most complex and protracted humanitarian crises, with 21.2 million people in need of humanitarian assistance in 2025. At the same time, the DRC faces one of the world's most neglected displacement crises, with more than 8 million women, children, and men in the country forced to flee their homes. For decades, the DR Congo has endured multiple, overlapping crises, mainly driven by conflict and forced displacement, both of which are having devastating consequences. Since the start of 2025, the longstanding instability and insecurity in eastern DRC has escalated as the M23 rebel group stepped up fighting and seized large territory in North and South Kivu provinces.
The Sahel region is experiencing one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, with over 26 million people in need of humanitarian assistance in 2026. At the same time, it is one of the most overlooked regions. The main drivers of the region's unprecedented humanitarian needs are armed conflict, deteriorating security, political instability, and widespread poverty, particularly in the Central Sahel region, which includes Burkina Faso, Mali, and western Niger, as well as the Lake Chad Basin, which covers parts of Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria.
