For the first time ever, the number of displaced people reached 70.8 million at the end of 2018, according to the UNHCR. The agency's chief warned against a hostile climate for refugees, but Germany came in for praise.
The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said the number of internally displaced persons in Mali tripled between 2017 and 2018, and figures have continued to rise in the first months of 2019, with hundreds of thousands of people who need humanitarian assistance.
At the end of the traditional tribal assembly in Kabul, Afghanistan vowed to release 175 Taliban prisoners. The peace summit took place amid escalating fighting between the Taliban and IS supporters in the eastern part of the country. The army intervened belatedly, and the situation remains confusing.
Indiscriminate bombing is continuing, including on residential areas, according to humanitarian agency OCHA. Over 3,000 refugees and migrants are stuck near the frontline.
The International Organization for Migration says more money is needed to help internally displaced people and other vulnerable groups in Iraq. There are currently close to 2 million displaced people in the country.
As fighting in Syria has slowed down, refugees and internally displaced people have started returning to their former properties - only to often find bombed-out buildings where their homes once stood. Amid a staggering number of land disputes arising as a result of the war, women are sometimes resorting to desperate measures in a bid to escape destitution.
March 15, 2019 marked the beginning of the ninth year of the war in Syria. UNICEF is commemorating the date by recalling that 8 million children have been affected by the war, five million of whom need humanitarian assistance within Syria's borders, and 2.5 of whom are refugees in neighboring countries.
Threats from armed groups operating between the borders of Mali and Niger have caused a new wave of displacement in the Tillabéry region of Niger, said Doctors Without Borders. It said more than 8,000 people have been forced to settle in improvised camps without access to clean water or sanitation facilities.
Africans who flee their home countries usually have a favored destination. As the number of refugees rises, the countries in which they seek shelter remain the same. Uganda tops the list.
Thousands of children in camps for refugees and displaced people in Syria and Lebanon are suffering because of the freezing temperatures and flooding that have recently hit the region. According to UNICEF, 15 children have died recently in those camps.
Hundreds of thousands of refugees in camps in Iraq remain in an 'acute' situation, according to the aid group CARE International. The organization's Iraq representative has warned the international community not to lose sight of the problem.
The humanitarian emergency in Nigeria "is far from over," according to Doctors Without Borders (MSF). People continue to be displaced due to violence in the northeast and rely on humanitarian assistance to survive.