Forced displacements to soar by 4.2 million by 2027, aid group warns
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Displaced children riding a scooter at a makeshift encampment in Beirut, Lebanon, on April 15, following Israeli evacuation orders.
PHOTO: REUTERS
COPENHAGEN – Wars, conflict, violence and persecution will drive 4.2 million people from their homes by the end of 2027, not including those affected by the war in the Middle East, a Danish humanitarian aid agency warned on April 16.
The number does not take into account those fleeing their homes due to the current situation in the Middle East, as the Danish Refugee Council’s projections were based on data available at the end of 2025, according to its annual displacement forecast.
The figure of 4.2 million comes on top of the 117.3 million people already displaced worldwide.
The war in the Middle East is “driving new displacements and making the humanitarian situation worse”, the agency’s secretary-general Charlotte Slente said in a statement.
“There is a road map that can pull the region back from the brink: The current ceasefire must become permanent, and it must be extended to Lebanon, where one in five people have been displaced by the conflict,” she said.
“Families in Lebanon and Iran must be allowed home to rebuild their lives in peace.”
The report noted that recent displacements are increasingly spread across more countries, rather than concentrated in a few major crises as in the past.
In 2025, Myanmar and Sudan alone accounted for more than half of the projected total, but in the updated forecast, their share fell to about a quarter.
International aid cuts have also had a direct impact on displacements.
In the five countries with the highest estimated displacements in 2025 – Ukraine, Myanmar, South Sudan, Nigeria and Mali – funding for peace efforts declined by 23 per cent on average in 2024.
By contrast, in the five countries where displacements decreased the most – Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Syria and the Democratic Republic of Congo – funding for peace efforts rose by an average of 15 per cent.
“The international community is facing a catastrophic failure to protect the world’s most vulnerable,” Ms Slente said, noting a 14 per cent surge in violence against civilians in 2025.
“For families fleeing war with nothing but the clothes on their backs, there is little hope: the international safety net that once existed has gaping holes,” she said, as humanitarian assistance shrinks. AFP
