110 million people displaced as Sudan, Ukraine wars add to the world refugee crisis, says U.N.

Ahead of the UNHCR’s Global Trend’s Report, Mr. Grandi said an additional 19 million people were forcibly displaced including more than 11 million who fled Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine

Some 110 million people have had to flee their homes because of conflict, persecution, or human rights violations, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said.

The war in Sudan, which has displaced nearly 2 million people since April, is but the latest in a long list of crises that have led to the record-breaking figure.

“It's quite an indictment on the state of our world,” Filippo Grandi, who leads the U.N. Refugee Agency, told reporters in Geneva ahead of the publication of UNHCR's Global Trends Report for 2022.

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Last year alone, an additional 19 million people were forcibly displaced including more than 11 million who fled Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in what became the fastest and largest displacement of people since World War II.

“We are constantly confronted with emergencies,” Mr. Grandi said. Last year the Agency recorded 35 emergencies, three to four times more than in previous years. “Very few make your headlines,” Mr. Grandi added, arguing that the war in Sudan fell off most front pages after Western citizens were evacuated.

Conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Myanmar were also responsible for displacing more than 1 million people within each country in 2022. The majority of the displaced globally have sought refuge within their nation's borders. One-third of them – 35 million – have fled to other countries, making them refugees, according to the UNHCR report. Most refugees are hosted by low to middle-income countries in Asia and Africa, not rich countries in Europe or North America, Mr. Grandi said.