By ZAYNAB LATHEEF, age 12
Every year, many people are forced to leave the comfort of their homes, also known as displacement. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, over 120 million people worldwide have been displaced because of “persecution, conflict, violence, or human rights violations.” Most of the world’s refugees are from Afghanistan, Syria, Venezuela, Ukraine and Sudan.
Some displaced people go to another country. Some move within their own country (internal displacement). Some people who are displaced go back home eventually. Some never do. “Forced displacement is one of the global challenges of our time,” says Kelly Clements, the deputy high commissioner for the U.N. Refugee Agency.
Since Oct. 7, 2023, there’s been mass displacement due to Israel’s war on Gaza. “We estimate that nine in every 10 people in the Gaza Strip have been internally displaced at least once, if not up to 10 times, unfortunately, since October,” said Andrea De Domenico, head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. “Behind these numbers, there are people … people who in the last nine months have been moved around like pawns in a board game.”
Sudan is where the world’s largest displacement crisis is currently taking place. According to the U.N. International Organization for Migration, more than 10 million people have left their homes in Sudan because of the civil war. Close to 27,000 additional Sudanese people have been displaced because of flooding since June, per the United Nations.
Natural disasters on their own are a big reason why people leave their homes. In 2023, around 25 million people worldwide were internally displaced due to disasters such as wildfires, floods and hurricanes, according to the Global Migration Data Portal.
In the United States, about 2.5 million people were displaced because of weather-related disasters in 2023, according to the Census Bureau. There were 28 major disasters in the United States in 2023. This year, 22 people died in the Houston area because of Hurricane Beryl. Around 2.2 million businesses and homes lost power. The Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico were also affected.
Displacement requires us to help those who are affected and to address the root causes, which are climate disasters and wars. “If we have that kind of international cooperation, we have a chance of being able to address this,” Clements says.
