Refugees are returning, but not home: UN records global displacement decline for the first time in ten years

The UN reports a decline, but the crisis is not over

For the first time in the last decade, the number of people forced to leave their homes due to wars, persecution, disasters, and the destruction of normal life has decreased worldwide. This is stated in a new report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees published on June 11, 2026.

At first glance, the figure looks like a rare positive signal: in 2025, the total number of forcibly displaced people decreased by 5.4 million, or about 4%.

But behind this statistic, there is no sense of victory. Even after the decline, it is about 117.8 million people who live not where they used to, not as they used to, and often do not know if they will ever return to normal life.

For the Israeli audience, this topic does not seem distant. Israel understands well what it means to live near war, evacuation, families without homes, anxious children, and people who cannot return to their cities for months. Therefore, the UN report is not just international statistics, but a mirror of an entire era where wars change demographics faster than diplomacy can respond.

According to UNHCR, in 2025, the number of refugees was 35.6 million, and internally displaced persons were 68.6 million. The latter remain within their country but effectively lose their home, job, familiar environment, and security.

Why the numbers have decreased

The main reason for the decrease is the mass return of people to their countries and regions of origin. In 2025, the number of such returns increased by 50% compared to the previous year and exceeded 14.7 million people.

This is one of the largest figures in the entire 60-year history of UNHCR observations.

4.4 million refugees and 10.3 million internally displaced persons returned to their permanent places of residence. A particularly noticeable increase in returns was recorded in Afghanistan, Sudan, and Syria.

However, the report contains an important caveat: not everyone returned voluntarily and safely. In many cases, people left host countries not because it became peaceful at home, but because life in exile became too difficult.

Rising prices, poverty, lack of work, pressure on aid systems, fatigue of host societies, and the reduction of humanitarian programs pushed people back — sometimes to devastated areas, sometimes to unstable conditions, sometimes to places where the threat has not disappeared.

That is why the reduction in the overall figure cannot be read as the end of the crisis. It shows not only movement towards a solution but also pressure on those who have been living between a past life and an impossible future for years.

Millions of people remain trapped in exile

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Barham Salih, presenting the annual report on global trends, emphasized that the scale of forced displacement remains unacceptably high.

According to UNHCR, about 70% of refugees continue to live in conditions of prolonged exile. This means years without clear status, without sustainable income, without normal future planning for children and family.

Almost as many — 68% — are in countries with low and middle income levels. This means that the main burden is borne not by the richest countries in the world, but by countries that themselves often face economic, social, and political problems.

For readers of NAnews — Israel News | Nikk.Agency, the humanitarian and political conclusion is important: the global asylum system relies on overloaded states, not on beautiful declarations. When crises drag on, refugees become part of the internal politics of host countries, and the topic of migration turns into a tool of pressure, elections, and international bargaining.

Barham Salih put it harshly: for too many refugees, displacement saves lives but becomes a sentence.

And this is perhaps the key phrase of the entire report. A person is saved from war but then depends on humanitarian aid for years, lives in poverty, and has no real way out — neither full integration, nor safe return, nor resettlement in a third country.

UNHCR’s goal by 2035

The UN agency aims to more than halve the number of refugees living in prolonged displacement and dependent on humanitarian aid by 2035.

To achieve this, several directions are proposed: voluntary return, resettlement in third countries, humanitarian visas, family reunification, educational programs, access to work, and financial independence.

A separate emphasis is placed on including refugees in national education, healthcare, financial services, and labor markets. The logic is clear: if a person can work, study, pay taxes, and support a family, they are less dependent on humanitarian organizations and contribute more to the economy of the host country.

But this requires investment, political will, and the readiness of states to see refugees not only as a problem but as people with professions, skills, families, and potential.

UNHCR also calls for creating conditions where refugees’ earnings allow them to live above the official poverty line in host countries. Without this, talks about independence remain a beautiful formula, not a real policy.

Ukraine, Sudan, Syria, and the Middle East: where the crisis is most severe

More than 70% of refugees and other people in need of international protection come from just six countries: Afghanistan, Venezuela, Syria, Sudan, Ukraine, and South Sudan.

This list shows that the global map of displacement is not made up of random spikes but of protracted crises. Some last for decades, others sharply escalated after full-scale wars, and others resulted from state collapse, poverty, and violence.

Ukraine remains among the main sources of forced displacement due to Russian aggression. Millions of Ukrainians were forced to go abroad or leave their homes within the country. For Israel, the Ukrainian direction is of particular importance: a large Russian-speaking and Ukrainian-speaking community lives here, many have relatives in Ukraine, and the war directly affects public connections, memory politics, and attitudes towards security.

The largest host countries in 2025 were Colombia — 2.8 million people, Germany — 2.7 million, Turkey — 2.4 million, Uganda — 1.9 million, Iran — 1.7 million, Chad — 1.5 million, and Pakistan — 1.3 million.

This geography is important. It shows that refugees most often stay near the crisis region, not travel to the other end of the world. Therefore, neighboring states take the first and hardest hit.

Internal displacement and new waves of crisis

By the end of 2025, there were 68.6 million internally displaced persons worldwide. This is 7% less than the previous year, but it still remains a colossal figure.

The largest crisis situation remained Sudan, where 9.1 million people were displaced within the country. The Sudanese crisis has long ceased to be regional news: it affects Chad, Egypt, humanitarian routes, food security, and the entire aid system in Africa.

The report also notes that the war in the Middle East, which began in February 2026, led to the displacement of about 1 million people in Lebanon and 3.2 million people in Iran.

For Israel, such data sounds particularly alarming. When millions of people are displaced in neighboring or nearby regions, it almost always means instability, increased pressure on borders, humanitarian risks, strengthening of radical structures, and new security challenges.

NAnews — Israel News | Nikk.Agency views such reports not as dry UN statistics but as part of the overall picture: modern war rarely stays within one country. It changes neighboring societies, migration routes, political alliances, labor markets, security, and the information agenda.

Stateless and unprotected

A separate part of the report is devoted to stateless persons. By the end of 2025, there were about 4.5 million such people worldwide, which is 3% more than the previous year.

Without citizenship, a person often cannot properly process documents, access education, healthcare, work, property, and basic legal protection. This is not just a bureaucratic status but a factual exclusion from the system.

At the same time, almost 46,000 people in 24 countries in 2025 were able to obtain documents and get rid of statelessness status. Against the backdrop of millions, this is little, but for each specific family, such a document means the opportunity to start life anew.

The main conclusion of the UN report sounds cautious: the world has seen a decrease in the number of forcibly displaced people for the first time in a decade, but this decrease cannot be considered a solution to the problem.

As long as wars continue in Ukraine, Sudan, Syria, the Middle East, and other regions, millions of people will live between the fear of returning and the inability to settle in a new place. This means that the refugee issue remains not only humanitarian but also strategic — for Europe, the Middle East, Israel, and the entire international security system.