Humanitarian Dimensions of Conflict

Contemporary armed conflicts have driven forced displacement to record levels: the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reported that the number of people forcibly displaced worldwide surpassed 120 million by 2024, comprising refugees who have crossed an international border, asylum seekers, and internally displaced persons (IDPs) who remain within their own country. Syria, Sudan, Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Venezuela have been among the largest sources of displacement in recent years, while the great majority of the world's refugees, according to UNHCR data, are hosted not in wealthy states but in low- and middle-income countries neighboring conflict zones, such as Iran and Pakistan (Afghan refugees), Turkey and Lebanon (Syrian refugees), and Colombia (Venezuelan migrants and refugees). Protracted displacement — refugee situations lasting five years or longer, often for decades, as with many Afghan, Somali, and Palestinian refugees — has become increasingly common, straining host-country resources, complicating durable solutions such as voluntary return, local integration, or third-country resettlement, and prompting debate over international burden-sharing, formalized in instruments such as the 2018 UN Global Compact on Refugees.