Last year, new internal displacements from conflict rose to 28.3 million – nearly double the number from a year earlier and more than three times the annual average over the past decade.
Eight million were forced from their homes by Pakistan’s monstrous floods, in addition to the 17 million displaced inside Ukraine last year.
Sub-Saharan Africa saw some 16.5 million displacements – more than half of them due to conflict, particularly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia.
Global internal displacement figures are only expected to rise this year, driven by fresh conflicts that have forced hundreds of thousands to flee, such as the violence ravaging Sudan.
More than 700,000 people have already been internally displaced by the fighting that broke out on April 15, according to UN figures, while another 150,000 have fled the country.
“Since the start of the most recent conflict in April, we have already recorded the same number of displacements as we will record for the entire year of 2022,” Bilak said.