A RECORD number of people are displaced inside their own countries due unresolved conflicts, violence and extreme weather conditions, according to a new report by the Norwegian Refugee Council. 

The report, launched in Geneva today by the council’s internal displacement monitoring centre, showed a whopping 41.3 million people were living in internal displacement worldwide at the end of 2018, the highest-ever figure.

The total has increased by more than a million since the end of 2017 and the figure is two-thirds higher than the global number of refugees.  

The monitoring centre recorded a record 28 million new internal displacements associated with conflict, generalised violence and disasters last year. 

Ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Syria and a rise in intercommunal tensions in Ethiopia, Cameroon and Nigeria’s Middle Belt region triggered most of the 10.8 million new displacements linked to conflict and violence. 

Internally displaced people (IDPs) who tried to return to their homes in Iraq, Nigeria and Syria during the year found their property destroyed, infrastructure damaged and basic services non-existent. 

Monitoring centre director Alexandra Bilak said: “This year’s report is a sad reminder of the recurrence of displacement and of the severity and urgency of IDP’s needs.

“Many of the same factors that drove people from their homes now prevent them from returning or finding solutions in the places they have settled.”

Extreme weather events have led to mass displacement in the Philippines, China, India and California, where the most destructive wildfires in its history displaced hundreds of thousands of people. 

Last year, 17.2 million new displacements were created by extreme weather in 2018. 

Conflict and disasters were responsible for displacement in a number of countries, with a drought in Afghanistan triggering more displacement than the country’s long-running armed conflict.

The report shows that internal displacement is an increasingly urban phenomenon. Such influxes present great challenges for cities and can aggravate existing risk factors. 

The crisis in north-eastern Nigeria, where the government has been struggling against jihadist terror groups, was aggravated by flooding that affected 80 per cent of the country. 

Norwegian Refugee Council secretary-general Jan Egeland said: “All displaced people have a right to protection and the international community has a duty to ensure it.”