The number of people forcibly displaced worldwide has fallen for the first time in a decade, the UN refugee agency reported on Thursday, but the 117.8 million still uprooted by war, violence and persecution represent one in every 70 human beings on Earth. The decline—from 120 million in 2024 to 117.8 million in 2025—marks the first decrease since 2014, yet UNHCR warns that coercive returns and unresolved crises are deepening the crisis rather than resolving it.
The drop is driven largely by 14.8 million refugees who returned home last year, a figure the UN calls “unusually high.” For many, however, the journey back is not a choice but a compulsion. “Returns are not always voluntary or safe,” said Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees. “When people are pushed back across borders or return to areas still torn by conflict, we are simply storing up future displacement.” The warning echoes the UNHCR’s 2025 report, which notes that 65 armed conflicts raged worldwide in 2025—the highest number since records began in 1946—leaving millions trapped in protracted crises with no durable solution in sight .
The concentration of displacement remains extreme. Just six countries now host more than half of all refugees: Turkey, Iran, Colombia, Germany, Pakistan and Uganda. Germany, which took in 2.9 million people in 2025, remains the only high-income nation in the top tier. “This is not a sign of success,” said Karl Kopp of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles. “It shows how few countries are willing to share responsibility.” The UNHCR report highlights that 75 per cent of refugees live in low- and middle-income countries already struggling with poverty and climate shocks.
Behind the aggregate figures lie human tragedies. In Syria, where the conflict has entered its 16th year, only 120,000 of the 6.8 million refugees registered with UNHCR returned in 2025—most under pressure from host governments. In Sudan, where civil war has displaced 10 million people, returns have been negligible. “The idea that people can go home safely is a fiction in too many places,” said a senior aid worker quoted in the *Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung* .
While the global total has edged down, the underlying drivers show no sign of abating. The UCDP conflict database at Uppsala University recorded 65 active wars in 2025, up from 55 in 2024, with new fronts opening in the Sahel and the South Caucasus. “We are not seeing fewer wars,” Grandi told reporters in Geneva. “We are seeing more people trapped in them for longer.” The UNHCR therefore urges states to halt forced returns, expand resettlement programmes and invest in conflict prevention—not least because the cost of inaction is measured in human lives, not just dollars.