The two major displacement situations in the Asia-Pacific region, in Afghanistan and Myanmar, became more challenging and attracted less funding in 2023. UNHCR sought to shore up the protection of refugees, other forcibly displaced as well as stateless people, to address and reverse signs of fatigue among donors and host States.
The biggest displacement emergency of 2023 erupted in the East and Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes region when conflict broke out in Sudan in April. The region’s forcibly displaced and stateless population rose by 32%, while the number of people internally displaced by conflict and natural disasters in 2023 included 14.9M conflict-induced IDPs and 4.5M natural disaster IDPs.
By the end of 2023, the number of forcibly displaced and stateless people in Europe stood at 21.5 million, slightly down from 21.9 million in 2022. Inside Ukraine, some 3.7 million people were internally displaced. Even after fleeing from frontline areas, people remain at risk from indiscriminate air strikes on civilian targets and infrastructure.
The region's protracted humanitarian crises and political and security challenges continued in 2023. A string of new emergencies struck the region, adding to existing crises.
At the end of 2023, there were 10.1 million forcibly displaced people and returnees in southern Africa, most of whom were internally displaced by conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Mozambique. The region hosted around 1 million refugees and asylum-seekers, and over 1 million people across southern Africa were forced from their homes by extreme weather events.
The Americas hosted 22 million forcibly displaced people and others in need of UNHCR’s protection and assistance in 2023, an increase of half a million people from 2022, driven by displacement situations in Colombia, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Haiti, northern Central America, Mexico and Nicaragua. An unprecedented 520,000 people from more than 35 countries crossed the Darien jungle in Panama to move from South to North America.
In West and Central Africa, the number of forcibly displaced and stateless people increased to 11.8 million. The crisis in Sudan drove over 556,000 Sudanese refugees into Chad.
