---
title: "“Today’s global displacement figures are an epic failure of humanity”"
description: "Reaction by Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, on the newly released global displacement figures:"
url: "https://www.nrc.no/news/2021/june/todays-global-displacement-figures-are-an-epic-failure-of-humanity"
language: "en"
published: "2021-06-18T05:05:00Z"
modified: "2021-06-17T18:33:13Z"
---

![The main street of Tsuya camp, DR Congo. This area hosts 20,000 displaced people from surrounding villages. In 2020, 2.2 million people became internally displaced in the country. Photo: Tom Peyre-Costa/NRC ](https://www.nrc.no/globalassets/fr2021/740a0585.jpg)

# “Today’s global displacement figures are an epic failure of humanity”

Published 18. Jun 2021|Updated 17. Jun 2021

[Global](https://www.nrc.no/themes?categoryId=23) [Global displacement overview](https://www.nrc.no/themes?categoryId=302)

This article was first published more than 5 years ago

Reaction by Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, on the newly released global displacement figures:

“Today’s global displacement figures are an epic failure of humanity. Every year for the past nine, record numbers of people have been forced to flee their homes because of violence and persecution. Yet despite the staggering statistics, world leaders have been inept to resolve the greatest emergency of our generation.

The majority of people fleeing today are on the move because of manmade conflicts. What is lacking is the political will and leadership to end these wars. World leaders can and do act to resolve global issues. G7 nations came together last weekend and agreed on a strategy to end the Covid-19 pandemic. But they have been muted on a strategy to end the suffering of millions of displaced women, men and children.

Far more people are on the move today than anytime during World War II, yet we say we live in an unprecedented era of global peacetime. We need to rewrite tomorrow’s history books to reflect today’s reality, that we live in an unprecedented era of persecution and suffering.”

**For more information or to set up an interview, contact:**

- NRC media hotline in Oslo at [media@nrc.no](mailto:media@nrc.no) or by phone +47 905 62 329.
- The newly released global displacement figures, including the 82.4 million people displaced, can be found on [UNHCR’s website](https://www.unhcr.org/).