In 2020, 55 million people were displaced within their countries

The 55 million people on the move is the "highest annual figure recorded in a decade". Photo: AFP

In 2020, 55 million people around the world were displaced inside their countries to escape conflict zones or disasters such as storms or floods. This is the highest annual figure in a decade, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) in its annual Global Report on International Displacement (GRID).

According to the 2021 report, published May 20, seven million people were uprooted during the year 2020 as a result of disasters. In the majority of cases, the causes were climate-related: floods, storms, earthquakes or the huge forest fires that affected California in the United States or Australia.