By the end of 2023, there were around 43 million refugees globally. But many more — roughly 68 million people — were displaced in their own countries because of armed conflicts and violence. In 2023 alone, there were 20 million incidents of internal displacement across 45 countries and territories — with Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Palestinian territories accounting for nearly two-thirds of the total.

Studies have shown, for example, that in camps for internally displaced adults and children in Sudan — and among internally displaced people in Myanmar who were not living in camps — mortality rates were well above the rate considered to signal a health emergency (on the basis of internationally agreed standards). Also, meta-analyses have shown that mortality rates for internally displaced people are consistently higher than for non-displaced people living in the same country. They are also higher than for refugees who have fled that country.