Geneva, 6 May 2015 - "There are a record 38 million people displaced within their own countries due to conflict or violence. This is equal to the total population of London, New York and Beijing together. These are the scariest numbers of forcibly displaced people in the last generation", said Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

Center for monitoring of internal displacement (IDMC), part of the NRC, published a report at the United Nations in Geneva "Global 2015: People who are internally displaced due to conflict and violence".  With a record number of internally displaced persons, the third consecutive year, the report  shows as well that during 2014, due to new conflicts, new 11 million people were displaced.

The report also draws attention to the ways in which long-term or prolonged displacement contributes to the alarmingly high global figures. During 2014, there have been those who have spent ten or more years in displacement in 90 percent of the 60 countries and territories under the supervision of the IDMC.
IDMC’s report also describes how displacement often reveals fundamental structural problems of a country and how it is possible to extend the deliberate politicization of issues by the authorities or their refusal to begin a formal resolution of the crisis.

Cautionary figures:

• The global review for 2015 lists the largest population displacement during 2014: 38 million internally displaced at the end of 2014, representing an increase of 4.7 million compared to 2013, when the IDMC reported on the 33.3 million internally displaced persons.
• 60 percent newly displaced persons are located in just five countries: Iraq, South Sudan, Syria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria.
• In 2014 most civilians were displaced in Iraq - at least 2.2 million people.
• More than 40 percent of Syria’s population, or 7.6 million are internally displaced, which is the largest number of displaced persons in the world.
• Campaign with the aim of occupation of the territory and the imposition of Islamic law in the north-eastern Nigeria, carried out by Boko Haram, has forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes.
• For the first time in more than a decade, Europe has been the scene of massive internal displacement caused by the war in Ukraine, where 646,500 people fled their homes during 2014.