GENEVA: Conflicts and natural disasters forced someone to flee within their own country every second of last year, pushing the number of people living in internal displacement to a record high, monitors said Thursday. This came despite strict restrictions on movement imposed around the globe in efforts to halt the spread of Covid-19, which observers had expected to push down displacement numbers last year.

But 2020 was also marked by intense storms, persistent conflicts and explosions of violence, forcing 40.5 million people to become newly displaced within their countries, according to a joint report by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

That is the highest number of newly displaced reported in 10 years, and brings the total number people living in internal displacement around the world to a record 55 million, the report showed.

“Both numbers this year were unusually high,” IDMC director Alexandra Bilak told AFP, saying the surge in internal displacement was “unprecedented”.

The number of internally displaced people is now more than double the some 26 million people who have fled across borders as refugees.

“It’s shocking that someone was forced to flee their home inside their own country every single second last year,” NRC chief Jan Egeland said in a statement.

“We are failing to protect the world’s most vulnerable people from conflict and disasters.”

Experts say that climate change is increasing the intensity and frequency of such extreme weather events.

“We can only expect with the future impacts of climate change for these disasters to become more frequent and more intense, and therefore for the numbers of internally displaced people to grow,” Bilak said.

In addition, nearly 10 million of those newly diplaced last year were fleeing conflicts and violence, the report said.