Climate change, especially the exacerbation of drought and flood phenomena, is forcing many people to migrate in search of food, water and new livelihoods throughout Africa. Resource scarcity pushes greater competition for its control, which unleashes conflicts, especially in areas with pre -existing tensions.
A few weeks ago, in the center of Nigeria, in the state of Plateau, a new confrontation for the control of pastures and water between agricultural and livestock communities, originated numerous dead and dozens of displaced. Climate stress forces shepherds to look for new lands to feed their cattle. They are increasingly forced to travel further from the territories where they were traditionally moved. This is a concrete example of how climate change leads to confrontation to communities for the control of resources.
This situation, which is repeated throughout Africa, adds to other conflicts and the degradation of land that is lived throughout the continent. One of the main consequences of all this is the increase in the number of people displaced and refugees in Africa. The mixture of climate change and conflicts is at the origin of this crisis.
On June 20, World Refugee Day, the United Nations Agency for Refugees (UNHCR) published its Annual Global Trends Report. It states that, at the end of 2024, 123’2 million people were displaced in the world. An increase of seven million in a year. Most displaced Africans remain in their countries of origin or in neighboring countries, many of which also lack resources and suffer conflicts.
The number of internal displaced people (PDI) in Africa has tripled since 2015, reaching 35.4 million in 2024. Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo represented almost half (45%) of all internal displaced causes caused by conflicts worldwide last year.
Sudan presents the greatest humanitarian and displaced crisis in the world. The civil war has forced 14.4 million people to leave their homes and has left two thirds of the population in the need for humanitarian aid. Most are internal and 2’8 million are found in other countries. At the end of 2024, the conflict of the east of the RDC had generated 1,22 million refugees and asylum seekers and 6’9 million internal displaced.
While the number of displaced people and refugees increases in Africa, ACNUR detects a slight decrease in other parts of the world, for the first time in a decade. 1’6 million people returned to their countries, especially in Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine. Many made this decision after years fighting to access rights and services in the countries in which they were.
Only a country in Africa has experienced a considerable return of some of its citizens, it is South Sudan. Many Sursudanese had taken refuge in Sudan, because of the conflict in their country, and with the beginning of the Sudanese civil war, they have been forced to return to their homes. And this, despite the fact that the situation in the country is not the most favorable, since there is a strong danger that the conflict will be intensified in it.
The Norwegian Council for Refugees (NRC) has also published its annual report in which there is a list with the 10 most unattended displacement crises worldwide in 2025. Eight of them are in Africa: Cameroon, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Burkina Faso, Mali, Uganda, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Somalia.
Of all of them, Cameroon stands out, to which the NRC qualifies as the most unattended crisis in the world, with a zero rating over 30 due to the lack of political will and poor media coverage. This Central African country welcomes 480,000 people fleeing internal conflicts and violence in the Chad Lake Basin and the Central African Republic. In addition, it houses 1,1 million internal displaced people, mostly from the conflict in the Anglophone zone and jihadist violence of the north of the country. A total of 2’8 million people face a serious situation of food insecurity.
Not only refugees and displaced people found in Cameroon are exposed to food insecurity. Virtually all people in the world that are in this situation are victims of the same. Many of the refugee and displaced programs depended on the support of USAID, the US cooperation agency that has been closed by the current administration of President Donald Trump. The instant cutting of supply has mired in despair many of the organizations that in the field try to relieve the situation of these people. For now, the governments of African countries that host displaced population or refugee have not done anything to replace the lack of help.
Climate change is becoming, more and more, one of the most powerful causes of conflicts in Africa. Millions of people will be forced to leave their homes because of weapons or extreme climatic phenomena. African countries will have to redouble their efforts to welcome these people. And more and more they will have to do it without the help that the Almighty USAID gave them before.
In the superior image, a Sudanese woman walks along a path in Jardum. Photography: Aytuge Can Sigar / Getty
