Dec 20, 2024
The global refugee population continues to grow, with more than 10 million newly-displaced refugees in the last four years. Here’s where many are coming from.
In 2014, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) recorded 14.38 million refugees around the world. In the last ten years, that population has increased by over 160%, reaching over 37.9 million people in 2024. Displacement at large has also continued to soar, with over 122 million people around the world forced to leave their homes.
Nearly half of all refugees in the world today come from just three countries, and while the UNHCR’s country data only goes up to the middle of 2024, we can expect these ten largest refugee crises to continue to require our attention and investment in 2025. Here’s what you need to know.
Ongoing violence and political instability in Eritrea have made it one of the largest refugee crises for the last several years. In the last decade, the global population of Eritrean refugees has more than doubled, with an estimated 559,000 people currently displaced. This represents about 15% of the country’s population.
For more than a decade, a humanitarian crisis in the Central African Republic has gone largely unnoticed in mainstream western media. This conflict, which began in 2012, had led to a nearly 360% increase in Central African refugees.
Despite violence decreasing significantly in 2021 and several thousand Central Africans returning home in the first half of 2024, there are still over 754,000 civilians registered as refugees.
» Learn more about Concern’s work in the Central African Republic
Decades of crisis in Somalia have led to ongoing displacement for hundreds of thousands of civilians. Numbers in 2024 were at their highest since 2019, with over 860,000 Somali refugees registered around the world.
This represents only about 17% of Somalia’s displacement crisis. An additional 226,000 Somalis are waiting to receive asylum status, and over 3.86 million are internally displaced within their country.
» Learn more about Concern’s work in Somalia
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While the vast majority of refugees (78% according to the UNHCR) are hosted in cities, that still leaves approximately 9.5 million refugees living in camps around the world. The biggest among them can host nearly 1 million on their own. What does life look like for those living in these camps, and what does it take to get there?
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While the vast majority of refugees (78% according to the UNHCR) are hosted in cities, that still leaves approximately 9.5 million refugees living in camps around the world. The biggest among them can host nearly 1 million on their own. What does life look like for those living in these camps, and what does it take to get there?
Read MoreIn 2024, the number of refugees fleeing decades of crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo exceeded 1 million. This represents a first in the UNHCR’s 73 years of record-keeping, and nearly a doubling of Congolese refugees in the last ten years. The scene of one of the worst-ever civil wars in African history, the DRC has moved from its national conflict of the late 1990s to a series of smaller, localized conflicts.
In 2022, violence in the eastern provinces (particularly North and South Kivu) escalated, a trend that continued into the first months of 2024. Nearly a quarter of a million people were newly displaced (both internally and internationally) in the first three months of the year alone. “This is not business as usual in the DRC,” said Concern DRC’s country director, Antoine Sagot-Priez, in March. “We need people to know what is happening here.”
» Learn more about Concern’s work in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine State displaced nearly 750,000 stateless Rohingya in just a few weeks. Ultimately, of the 1.3 million refugees from Myanmar, the Rohingya make up the majority (with over 1 million as we enter 2025), however many others have fled ongoing conflict and instability in the country.
Following the onset of conflict in 2023, the crisis in Sudan continued to worsen in 2024, with over 1.77 million Sudanese refugees recorded earlier this year (up 750,000 people from last year, and more than double the total from just two years ago). Many are in neighboring Chad. Over 10.5 million more have been internally displaced by the conflict as well.
» Learn more about Concern’s work in Sudan
With over 2.98 million refugees in 2024, South Sudan’s displacement crisis is at its highest since 2017 (when civilians faced unprecedented violence and risk in some areas). An additional 1.12 million are displaced internally in protection of civilian (POC) sites.
» Learn more about Concern’s work in South Sudan
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The challenges don’t end once a person has been granted asylum. Read on for ten of the most common problems refugees face today — and what we’re doing to help.
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The challenges don’t end once a person has been granted asylum. Read on for ten of the most common problems refugees face today — and what we’re doing to help.
Read MoreDecades of crisis in Afghanistan have made it one of the top countries of origin for refugees. One in every five refugees is Afghan. In late 2023 and early 2024, several hundred thousand returned following a policy change in Pakistan, however there are still over 6.05 million Afghan refugees in the world (including many who have been born in displacement and never set foot in their ancestral home).
» Learn more about Concern’s work in Afghanistan
In February 2022, ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine led to a full-blown humanitarian crisis which led to the rapid displacement of over 5 million Ukrainians. In 2024, that number exceeded 6.06 million, with another 3.67 million displaced internally throughout the country.
» Learn more about Concern’s work in Ukraine
The UNHCR’s data for refugee statistics is comprehensive up until the middle of 2024, when it recorded 6.25 million refugees from Syria (as well as 7.41 million internally-displaced Syrians). Since then, several factors have changed and may continue to change the state of the crisis in Syria, including conflict in Lebanon and political shifts in Syria itself.
What we do know is that, even if many Syrians are able to return home in the new year, they will continue to require support as they rebuild their communities and their lives. For many refugees around the world, coming home is the ultimate goal, but it’s not the end of the story. Concern is prepared to offer that support as part of our work in Syria and the region.
» Learn more about Concern’s work in Syria
Emergency response is part of Concern’s DNA and working with refugee communities in this context has become a core skill for our teams over the last six decades. We work with both refugee communities and host countries to ease the pressure that mass displacement can put on a host community. In addition to meeting the frontline needs — including food, shelter, protection, and other non-food essentials — we also work with refugees on longer-term initiatives, including skill-building and livelihood development and psychosocial support.
We also put a special focus on the needs of child refugees (who make up 40% of the global refugee population), including education, family support, and providing safe spaces where they can play and enjoy their childhood.
Last year, we responded to 66 emergencies in 20 countries, reaching nearly 15.5 million people. This included:
*All numbers are via the UNHCR’s Refugee Statistics Portal and include refugees under UNHCR mandate. For the purposes of this article, we do not include Venezuelans displaced abroad or Palestinians under UNRWA mandate, as they have a different legal classification within the international asylum system.
