10 African countries with the most internally displaced persons in 2026
By Aboki Forex —
The world marked World Refugee Day on June 20. The United Nations set aside the day to honour people forced to flee their homes due to war, persecution, violence, and disasters.
Global displacement numbers are staggering. About 41.6 million people are refugees worldwide. Another 9 million are asylum seekers waiting for protection claims to be processed.
But before many refugees cross a border, they first become displaced inside their own country. These are Internally Displaced Persons, or IDPs. They are men, women, and children forced to abandon their homes but who stay within their country's borders.
Unlike refugees, IDPs do not have the legal protections that come with crossing an international boundary. They often remain trapped in conflict zones, disaster-hit communities, overcrowded camps, or unfamiliar towns. Survival becomes a daily struggle.
The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre's Global Report on Internal Displacement 2026 paints a sobering picture. In 2025 alone, the world recorded 62.2 million internal displacement movements. Conflict and violence triggered 32.3 million of those movements. Disasters caused 29.9 million.
By the end of 2025, 82.2 million people were living in internal displacement globally.
Behind those numbers are human stories. Families fleeing gunfire in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Mothers carrying children through floodwaters in South Sudan. Farmers in northern Nigeria leaving ancestral lands because armed groups turned villages into battlefields. Children sleeping under plastic tarpaulins after cyclones hit coastal communities in Mozambique.
Using data from the IDMC Global Report on Internal Displacement 2026, here are the 10 African countries with the highest number of new internal displacements.