Natural disasters and human conflict forced about 66 million people to flee within their own countries last year, and the United States led all nations with 11 million of these internal displacements, new research finds.
That’s a record for the United States. And last year broke a global record, too, as 2024 saw the largest number of disaster-related internal displacements since experts began tracking the issue in 2008. About 46 million people worldwide had to relocate domestically last year because of natural disasters; another 20 million had to flee because of conflict or violence.
Those are the latest statistics from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, an international nongovernmental organization that keeps tabs on the number of people forced to flee within their countries each year because of natural disasters, extreme weather, conflict and violence.
IMDC publishes the previous year’s findings in an annual report each spring; its latest analysis was released Tuesday.
