The United Nations refugee agency has given us a new report that shows just how bad things have become for millions of human beings across the world. As of today, at least 117.8 million people – that is one out of every 70 people on this planet – are living far away from their homes because of fighting, violence, or their human rights being trampled upon.
For the first time in ten years, that number actually went down a bit. The UNHCR says many people went back to their own countries in 2025, and that helped reduce the total number of displaced people by about four percent. However, that progress has been completely swallowed by the new trouble in the Middle East. Since the US-Israel war on Iran started just a few months ago in late March 2026, Israeli attacks have pushed more than one million people out of their homes in Lebanon, and another 3.2 million are now running away inside Iran itself.
So who makes up all these 117 million people? The report breaks it down for us. The biggest group is internally displaced persons – that is people still inside their own country but unable to go back home – and they are 68.6 million. Then we have refugees under the UNHCR mandate, numbering 28.5 million. Another nine million are asylum seekers, meaning they have run to another country and are waiting to hear if they will be allowed to stay. There are 7.2 million others who need international protection, and six million Palestinian refugees who are looked after by a different UN agency called UNRWA.
Now, where are all these refugees coming from? Almost three quarters of them – 72 percent – come from just seven countries. Venezuela has given 6.4 million refugees. Palestine follows closely with six million. Ukraine has 5.2 million people who have fled. Syria has 4.9 million. Afghanistan has 3.7 million. Sudan has 2.8 million. And South Sudan has 2.4 million.
And which countries are hosting these refugees? More than one third of the world's refugees live in just seven nations. Colombia is hosting 2.8 million, mostly from Venezuela. Germany is hosting 2.7 million, many of them Ukrainians, Syrians and Afghans. Turkiye is hosting 2.4 million, and almost all of them are Syrians. Uganda is hosting 1.9 million, mainly from South Sudan. Iran is hosting 1.7 million, nearly all Afghans. Chad is hosting 1.5 million, mostly Sudanese. And Pakistan is hosting 1.3 million, again mostly Afghans. The report also notes that 65 percent of refugees live in countries that share a border with their home country.
If we look at history, things have never been this bad for so long. Back in 1951 when the UN made the Refugee Convention, there were only 2.1 million refugees worldwide. By 1980, that number passed ten million. Wars in Afghanistan and Ethiopia during the 1980s made it double to 20 million by 1990. Then the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, plus the civil wars in Syria and South Sudan, pushed the number past 30 million by the end of 2021. The Ukraine war in 2022 caused one of the fastest-growing crises since World War Two, with 5.7 million fleeing in less than a year. In 2023, the fighting in Sudan added 1.5 million more refugees. That same year, Israel's bombing of Gaza displaced nearly all of Gaza's 2.3 million people, many of them multiple times.
Now, there is some good news hidden in this dark story. In 2025, the number of refugees and internally displaced people who returned to their homes went up by 50 percent compared to 2024. More than 14.7 million people went back. That is the largest wave of returns the UN has ever recorded. Most of those returns – 92 percent – were to just six countries: Democratic Republic of Congo with 3.6 million, Sudan with 3.6 million, Syria with 3.3 million, Afghanistan with two million, Ukraine with 718,300, and Myanmar with 415,200.
But before we celebrate, the UNHCR has given a serious warning. They say the conditions for these returns are far from good. Many people are going back to places where there is still violence and instability. So the question we must ask ourselves is this: are we sending people back to danger? Because running away is painful, but going home to face more trouble might be even worse.
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