Displacement

Last update: June 2025 | Next update: June 2026

Close to 50 million children had been displaced due to conflict and violence globally by the end of 2024

The total number of children displaced by conflict and violence rose to 48.8 million by the end of 2024, with large populations of children driven from home in places around the world: Sudan, Myanmar, the Gaza Strip, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Afghanistan. This number includes some 19.1 million refugee children and asylum-seekers (15.0 million refugees under UNHCR mandate and other children in need of international protection[1], 1.7 million Palestine children registered as refugees with UNRWA[2]) and around 2.7 million asylum-seeking children) and an estimated 29.4 million children displaced within their own countries by conflict and violence.

Data show that an additional 4.4 million children were living in situations of internal displacement at the end of 2024 because of disasters.

Between 2010 and 2024, the global number of displaced children nearly tripled from around 17.0 million to 48.8 million. According to UNHCR, more than 2.3 million children were born as refugees from 2018 to 2024 alone, the equivalent of 337,800 children each year.

Footnotes

[1] The category “Other people in need of international protection” (OIP) refers to “people who are outside their country or territory of origin, typically because they have been forcibly displaced across international borders, who have not been reported under other categories (asylum-seekers, refugees, people in refugee-like situations) but who likely need international protection, including protection against forced return, as well as access to basic services on a temporary or longer-term basis” (Source: UNHCR 2025, Refugee Data Finder.

[2] In total, 6 million Palestine refugees are registered in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, and the West Bank with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). These refugees are outside of the mandate of UNHCR.

 

Displacement data

Notes on the data

Definitions

International migrants: Persons living in a country or area other than their country of birth.

Refugees: Persons who are outside their country of nationality or habitual residence, who cannot return due to a well-founded fear of being persecuted because of their race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. This number only accounts for those who have been recognized as refugees or find themselves in refugee-like situations. Data are presented in thousands.

Asylum seeker: Persons whose application for asylum or refugee status is pending at any stage in the asylum procedure. If granted, persons are regarded as refugees. Data are presented in thousands.

Internal displaced persons: Persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized border. Data presented in this table refer only to persons displaced due to conflict and violence. Data are presented in thousands.

Other people in need of international protection (OIP): People who are outside their country or territory of origin, typically because they have been forcibly displaced across international borders, who have not been reported under other categories (asylum-seekers, refugees, people in refugee-like situations) but who likely need international protection, including protection against forced return, as well as access to basic services on a temporary or longer-term basis.“ Venezuelans previously designated as “Venezuelans displaced abroad” are included in this new category. This change has been made retroactively in UNHCR’s statistics since 2018.

Sources

Total population by country or area: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2024), World Population Prospects 2024.

Refugees by country of asylum: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2024, UNHCR, Geneva, 2025.

Refugees by country of origin: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2024. UNHCR, Geneva, 2025. Share of under 18 from UNHCR unpublished data, cited with permission.

Asylum seekers: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2024, UNHCR, Geneva, 2025.

Internally displaced persons (IDPs): Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Global Internal Displacement Database (GIDD), IDMC, 2025.

UNRWA Palestine refugees: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2024, UNHCR, Geneva, 2025.