Global Displacement to Rise by 6.7 Million People by End of Next Year, Aid Group Says 

Displaced Palestinians take shelter in a tent camp set up at Palestine Stadium, which was damaged during the Israeli offensive, in Gaza City, March 11, 2025. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians take shelter in a tent camp set up at Palestine Stadium, which was damaged during the Israeli offensive, in Gaza City, March 11, 2025. (Reuters)
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Global Displacement to Rise by 6.7 Million People by End of Next Year, Aid Group Says 

Displaced Palestinians take shelter in a tent camp set up at Palestine Stadium, which was damaged during the Israeli offensive, in Gaza City, March 11, 2025. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians take shelter in a tent camp set up at Palestine Stadium, which was damaged during the Israeli offensive, in Gaza City, March 11, 2025. (Reuters)

Some 6.7 million additional people are expected to be newly displaced around the world by the end of next year, the Danish Refugee Council said on Friday, just as aid cuts from key donors like the United States take effect.

The UN refugee agency said last year that the number of forcibly displaced people around the globe stood at over 117 million people and warned that number could rise.

"These are not cold statistics. These are families forced to flee their homes, carrying next to nothing, and searching for water, food, and shelter," said Charlotte Slente, secretary general of the Danish Refugee Council in a statement.

Twenty-seven countries account for nearly a third of all global displacements. The projection is based on an AI-driven model that predicts displacement trends by analyzing over 100 indicators, including factors such as security, politics and economics in those countries.

It forecasts that nearly a third of new displacements will be from Sudan, which is already the world's worst refugee crisis after nearly two years of war. Another 1.4 million people are expected to be forcibly displaced from Myanmar, the report said.

US President Donald Trump is cutting billions of dollars in foreign aid programs globally as part of a major spending overhaul by the world's biggest aid donor.

The Danish Refugee Council is one of the aid groups hit and has had more than 20 contract terminations.

Cuts from Washington and other key donors are already impacting refugees.

The UN refugee agency said that funding shortages had shuttered programs to protect adolescent girls from child marriage in South Sudan and a safe house for displaced women in danger of being killed in Ethiopia.

"Millions are facing starvation and displacement, and just as they need us most, wealthy nations are slashing aid. It's a betrayal of the most vulnerable," said Slente.



Doctor Deported to Lebanon Had Photos ‘Sympathetic’ to Hezbollah on Phone, US Says

A general view of The John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts, US, July 27, 2021. REUTERS/Nicholas Pfosi/File Photo
A general view of The John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts, US, July 27, 2021. REUTERS/Nicholas Pfosi/File Photo
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Doctor Deported to Lebanon Had Photos ‘Sympathetic’ to Hezbollah on Phone, US Says

A general view of The John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts, US, July 27, 2021. REUTERS/Nicholas Pfosi/File Photo
A general view of The John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts, US, July 27, 2021. REUTERS/Nicholas Pfosi/File Photo

US authorities on Monday said they deported a Rhode Island doctor to Lebanon last week after discovering "sympathetic photos and videos" of the former longtime leader of Hezbollah and its fighters in her cell phone's deleted items folder.

Alawieh had also told agents that while in Lebanon she attended the funeral last month of Hezbollah's slain leader Hassan Nasrallah, whom she supported from a "religious perspective" as a Shiite.

The US Department of Justice provided those details as it sought to assure a federal judge in Boston that US Customs and Border Protection did not willfully disobey an order he issued on Friday that should have halted Dr. Rasha Alawieh's immediate removal.

The 34-year-old Lebanese citizen, who held an H-1B visa, was detained on Thursday at Logan International Airport in Boston after returning from a trip to Lebanon to see family. Her cousin then filed a lawsuit seeking to halt her deportation.

In its first public explanation for her removal, the Justice Department said Alawieh, a kidney specialist and assistant professor at Brown University, was denied re-entry to the United States based on what CBP found on her phone and statements she made during an airport interview.

"It's a purely religious thing," she said about the funeral, according to a transcript of that interview reviewed by Reuters. "He's a very big figure in our community. For me it's not political."

Western governments including the United States designate Hezbollah a terrorist group. The Lebanese armed group is part of the "Axis of Resistance", an alliance of Iran-backed groups across the Middle East that also includes the Palestinian movement Hamas, which sparked the Gaza war by attacking Israel almost a year ago on Oct. 7.

Based on those statements and the discovery of photos on her phone of Nasrallah and Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, the Justice Department said CBP concluded "her true intentions in the United States could not be determined."

Alawieh and a lawyer for her cousin did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In Monday's filing, the Justice Department also defended CBP officials against claims by the cousin's legal team that Alawieh was flown out of the country on Friday evening in violation of an order issued by US District Judge Leo Sorokin that day.

The judge had issued an order barring Alawieh's removal from Massachusetts without 48 hours' notice. Yet she was put onto a flight to France that night and is now back in Lebanon.

The judge on Sunday had directed the government to address "serious allegations" that his order was willfully violated ahead of a hearing that had been scheduled for Monday.

That hearing was canceled on Monday at the request of the cousin's lone remaining attorney, after lawyers at the law firm Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer representing her pro bono withdrew, citing "further diligence" about the quickly-moving case.

A lawyer with that firm said she had gone to the airport on Friday and shown a CBP officer a copy of Sorokin's order on her laptop before Alawieh's Air France flight departed, and another CBP official in a declaration on Monday said he was made aware that occurred before taking Alawieh to the boarding area.

But the Justice Department said the notification needed to be received through standard channels and be received by the agency's legal counsel for their review and guidance, which did not happen.

"CBP takes court orders seriously and strives to always abide by a court order," Justice Department attorneys wrote.

The Justice Department's filing was later sealed by Sorokin at the request of a lawyer for the cousin. Reuters reviewed it from a public terminal in the courthouse before access was further restricted.