NAIROBI, March 4 (Xinhua) -- The Horn of Africa has some 26.3 million people living either as refugees or internally displaced persons (IDPs), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) disclosed in a report on Tuesday.
According to the report, 20.7 million people are internally displaced while 5.6 million are refugees and asylum seekers.
The UNHCR highlighted a rise in the number of those displaced following the escalation of conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in February. "Approximately 65,000 people have arrived in Burundi and 15,937 in Uganda from the DRC since January 2025," the agency said.
It also revealed that Egypt holds the highest number of 1.5 million refugees from Sudan, followed by South Sudan at 1.05 million and Chad at 759,058.
The main causes of displacements in the Horn of Africa are conflict, climate change effects like floods and drought, and food insecurity, according to the UN agency.
Data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development showed that some 66.9 million people were food insecure in the Horn of Africa at the end of January. ■
