Africa’s Enduring Conflicts Deepen Population Displacements

Africa continues to face near record levels of forced displacement due to protracted conflicts that generate recurring cycles of instability and population movements.

Highlights

• Nearly 45 million Africans (roughly 3 percent of the African population) are forcibly displaced–having fled conflict, violence, and repression. Seven countries–Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Somalia, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, South Sudan, and Ethiopia–account for roughly 85 percent of that number.

• The total represents a slight reduction from the figure of more than 45 million forcibly displaced observed in 2025, largely due to a return of some 1.5 million Sudanese despite the ongoing conflict there. The plateauing in the level of displacement is noteworthy as it breaks a decade-long pattern of consistently increasing numbers of forcibly displaced people on the continent. As a point of comparison, there were 19.9 million Africans forcibly displaced in 2017.

• Conflict remains the dominant driver of forced displacement in Africa. The top 10 leading countries of origin for displaced people on the continent are all in conflict.

The top 10 leading countries of origin for displaced people on the continent have all been in conflict for at least 8 years.

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These conflicts, moreover, tend to persist. Of the top 10 source countries of displacement, all have been in conflict for at least 8 years. As these threats endure, the coping mechanisms of communities wear down–and the number of people who feel compelled to move to survive grows over time. Over half of the top 10 displacement-producing African countries, for example, have the same or larger displaced populations than they did in 2023.

• Reflective of the compounding effects of conflict, seven African countries have between 17 and 28 percent of their populations displaced.

Data sources: IDMC (2025), World Bank (2025), IOM and UNHCR (mid-2026 figures)

• In cases where displaced people return home, these movements tend to be tenuous. Despite some refugees returning to Sudan, the country still has the highest number of forcibly displaced people, illustrating the continuing high levels of risk and instability caused by the ongoing conflict. Similar sizable returns of displaced people following the end of the Tigray conflict in Ethiopia have been offset by an increase in displacement of almost 495,000 Ethiopians over the past year as armed violence has ticked up in parts of the country. Somalia, Nigeria, Niger, and Cameroon also saw notable increases in their displaced populations over the past year.
• Rather than an improvement of security in the country of origin, some of the returns of displaced populations reflect the deterioration of security in neighboring countries that have been hosting these refugees, a sober illustration of Africa’s colliding conflicts.

Data source: UNHCR (mid-2026 figures)

• These cumulative figures also underestimate intra-year displacement–cases where people flee a security threat but return during the course of the year. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) experienced an alarming 9.7 million new conflict-related displacements in the past year as the M23 took over Goma and Bukavu in the DRC’s eastern provinces. Though many of the displaced were able to return to their communities, they came back to razed homes, destroyed infrastructure, increased criminality, and worsened living conditions. The DRC’s reported decline in year-on-year displacement: from 6.55 million people to 6.48 million, therefore, masks the profound instability in these eastern provinces.
• The DRC’s 9.7 million intra-year displacement far exceeds similar cases of recent mass displacement:
  • 6 million in Sudan (2023)
  • 5.3 million in DRC (2024)
  • 5 million in Ethiopia (2021)
  • 4 million in the DRC (2022)
• DRC has had more than a million intra-year displacements for 9 years straight (2017-2025). This enduring disruption is a pattern unmatched by any other African country in recent decades.

• Perpetuating a consistent pattern, roughly 70 percent of displaced Africans are internally displaced (IDPs) within their countries. This reflects the preference of displaced people to remain as close to their homes as possible. In addition to those primary source countries of forced displacement listed above, Cameroon stands out for having more than 1 million people displaced internally.

Internal displacement tends to be more informal and less easily recorded.

These IDP figures are likely an undercount of the true scale and scope of the displacement. Internal displacement tends to be more informal and less easily recorded. In some cases, national officials see value in downplaying the scale of instability. In Burkina Faso, for example, the military junta is accused of preventing civilians, sometimes through violence, from fleeing townsunder siege by Islamist insurgents of the Jama’at Nusrat al Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM) coalition in an effort to project an image of stability. Combined with the military authorities’ decision to stop reporting internal displacement figures in March 2023, these actions suggest that the true number of displaced in Burkina Faso, as well as the neighboring junta-led Sahelian countries, is likely significantly underestimated.

• When displaced populations do flee across borders, they tend to settle in neighboring countries. Nearly 90 percent of African refugees are hosted in another African country.

Increasingly Dispersed Displacement from Protracted Conflicts

• When displacement becomes protracted, those who can may seek resettlement toward networks in more economically robust areas: typically, cities in the neighboring countries, possibly cities farther away–particularly when neighboring countries are facing insecurity or limited livelihood opportunities. The DRC, for example, has refugees and asylum seekers residing in 31 African countries.

The DRC has refugees and asylum seekers residing in 31 African countries.

A review of the top five countries of origin for African refugees and asylum seekers suggests that displacement patterns are influenced by a range of factors, including the length of conflict, conflict-related economic conditions, existing diaspora networks, and common language. The DRC, Sudan, and Somalia have established diasporas that can provide transitional support. Refugee movements from CAR, by contrast, suggest that language may play an important role in destination selection when diaspora networks are less established. Following initial displacement to neighboring countries, CAR nationals have moved into the Francophone West African countries.

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