Forced to flee or too poor to leave: how climate change affects refugees

An internally displaced man at Berley Camp, 20 kilometres from the city of Gode, Ethiopia, in January 2023. The last five rainy seasons since the end of 2020 have failed, triggering the worst drought in four decades in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya. © AFP - Eduardo Soteras

On this year’s World Refugee Day, a record number of people are displaced – some 110 million, according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR. People continue to be forced from their homes by conflict, persecution and insecurity, and increasingly by disasters related to climate change.

A record 108.4 million were displaced by the end of 2022, according to UNHCR, a figure estimated to have risen to 110 million by the end of May with the outbreak of fighting in Sudan.