UNHCR: global forced displacement falls 4% in 2025, first decline in a decade, but involuntary returns raise alarm

First decline in a decade

In its annual Global Trends report released on 11 June 2026, the UN refugee agency said the total number of people forced to flee their homes stood at 117.8 million at the end of 2025, down by 5.4 million from a revised 123.2 million a year earlier. The 4% fall is the first annual decrease in global forced displacement in ten years. UN High Commissioner Barham Salih called it "a modest decline", but added that it was still "welcome news".

This small decline is good news.

Return movements hit a 60-year high

A key driver of the fall was the second-highest level of returns in six decades of record-keeping. Some 14.7 million displaced people went back to their places of origin in 2025: 10.3 million were internally displaced and 4.4 million had fled abroad. The number of refugee returns alone was three times the 2024 figure. Countries with the largest return movements included Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Involuntary returns and the risk of renewed displacement

The UNHCR stressed that many of those returns were not voluntary. Pakistan and Iran forced millions of Afghans who had lived there for years to go back. Salih warned that returning people to unsafe countries with destroyed infrastructure and limited economic opportunities could quickly trigger new waves of displacement.

When people are forced to return to a country that is not safe and where they cannot earn a living, that can quickly spark the next flight.

5.4 million people fled abroad because of conflict and persecution in 2025, mostly staying in neighbouring poor countries. Around 70% of all refugees have been in exile for at least five years and remain dependent on humanitarian assistance.

Long-term displacement and a new target

Salih, a former refugee himself, set an ambitious goal of halving the number of long-term displaced people reliant on aid by 2035. He called for more investment in integration, education and legal pathways, including resettlement and humanitarian visas, saying "inclusion is not a burden, but a gain" for host societies. Yet the report shows resettlement places collapsed to just under 82,000 in 2025, less than half the 2024 level, and Germany suspended its programme entirely.

I consider it a violation of human dignity when people are stuck in this situation and dependent on humanitarian aid.

Where refugees are hosted

The three countries hosting the largest refugee populations in 2025 were Colombia (2.8 million), Germany (2.7 million) and Turkey (2.4 million). Roughly two-thirds of all refugees lived near their home countries, often in low-income states struggling to meet their own populations' basic needs. The total number of stateless people rose to 4.5 million, and pending asylum applications worldwide climbed by 645,300 to nearly nine million.