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.



Iran Opposition Leader Karroubi to be Freed from House Arrest, His Son Says

Iran's presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi (3rd R) joins a crowd of supporters in Tehran June 17, 2009. REUTERS/Demotix/File Photo
Iran's presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi (3rd R) joins a crowd of supporters in Tehran June 17, 2009. REUTERS/Demotix/File Photo
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Iran Opposition Leader Karroubi to be Freed from House Arrest, His Son Says

Iran's presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi (3rd R) joins a crowd of supporters in Tehran June 17, 2009. REUTERS/Demotix/File Photo
Iran's presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi (3rd R) joins a crowd of supporters in Tehran June 17, 2009. REUTERS/Demotix/File Photo

Iranian opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi will be released from house arrest on Monday, state media reported, 14 years after he was detained for calling for a rally in support of protests that swept the Arab world in 2011.

"My father was told by security agents that his house arrest will end today," his son Hossein Karroubi told state news agency IRNA, adding that security agents would remain at the premises until April 8 due to security concerns.

The 87-year-old, ailing mid-level cleric has remained defiant, questioning the legitimacy of the clerical establishment in statements published by pro-reform websites.

After calling for a rally in solidarity with pro-democracy uprisings, Karroubi - along with ex-prime minister Mirhossein Mousavi and his wife Zahra Rahnavard, a prominent academic - were put under house arrest in February 2011.

They have not been put on trial or publicly charged, Reuters reported.

Former parliament speaker Karroubi and Mousavi ran for election in 2009 and became figureheads for Iranians who staged eight months of mass protests after a vote they believed was rigged to bring back hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Karroubi's son Hossein told pro-reform Jamaran news website that his father demanded the release of Mousavi.

"They told my father that the same process ... would be carried out for Mousavi within the next few months and Mousavi too would be released," the Jamaran website quoted him as saying.

Iran's judiciary made no comment.

Karroubi, like Mousavi and Rahnavard, had been under round-the-clock surveillance by security guards initially living in his home. But conditions improved in past years for Karroubi, with some family and politicians allowed to visit him.

Suffering from various medical complications, Karroubi has been taken to hospital several times for heart surgery and treatment.

During his election campaign, Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian promised to make an effort for their release.