The United Nations organises World Refugee Day on June 20 every year. It has been doing so since 2001. There are multiple factors that can lead to a refugee crisis, like economic collapse, persecution, and authoritarian regimes. But by far, the biggest cause is war. This year, World Refugee Day comes just as the world is on the brink of a new refugee crisis.
At the end of 2024, there were over 123 million forcibly displaced people worldwide. This includes both internally displaced people and refugees. Most people who are forcibly displaced end up staying in their homelands, like in the case of Gaza. Israel bombs one part of Gaza, so Palestinians flee to another area. Then Israel bombs them again, in their place of refuge, forcing them to move again. Like a genocidal game of musical chairs. The people of Gaza are a prime example of internally displaced people. There are over 73 million IDPs in the world today.
But some people have no choice but to flee their countries. At the end of 2024, there were over 42 million refugees spread all over the globe, and most of them had to flee because of wars. 6 million Syrian refugees, 5.8 million Afghans, over 5 million Ukrainians and 2.1 million people from Sudan. Whether it’s a civil war, invasion or the so-called “war on terror”, the common threads are death, destruction and a refugee crisis.
While some have the means to flee to their country of choice, most refugees end up crossing into bordering countries. Most Syrians refugees ended up in neighbouring Türkiye, because of the 14-year-long civil war. Afghans overwhelmingly fled to Iran and Pakistan. Sudanese people went to Egypt, Chad and even South Sudan. Ukrainians had more options. They were allowed to seek refuge all over Europe. But a majority are in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic, all close to their homeland. But this doesn’t mean that refugees don’t go far and wide. There are over 700,000 Syrian refugees in Germany. Libya was host to about 200,000 Sudanese asylum seekers. And there were almost 100,000 Afghan refugees in France at the end of 2024.
On June 13, Israel launched an assault on Iran. The target was supposed to be Iran’s nuclear programme. Israel says it won’t allow Iran to develop a nuclear bomb. Iran has always said that it doesn’t want to create nuclear weapons. Their supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, even issued a fatwa, or religious decree, banning nuclear weapons. The US Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, said that Iran was not working on a nuclear warhead back in March. But despite all this, Israel went ahead and bombed Iran anyway. Reports say that Israel is urging the US to join them, though US President Donald Trump has been non-committal so far. If Trump decides to bomb Iran, if he decides to drag the US into another war in the Middle East, the resulting refugee crisis could be worse than anything the world has seen so far.
The Syrian civil war started in 2011. Hundreds of thousands fled the country in the first year of the conflict, and the numbers kept rising over time. At the peak of their refugee crisis, there were about 6.8 million Syrians seeking asylum abroad. That’s about 30% of Syria’s pre-war population.
Afghanistan has seen war and instability since the 1970s. There have been multiple refugee waves from the country over the past 50-odd years. As things stand today, the country is home to about 43 million people. And there are about 6.4 million Afghan refugees spread across the world. So, about 13% of all Afghans are living as refugees in other countries.
Now let’s imagine what would happen if Israel and the US really do launch an all-out war against Iran. Iran is home to about 92 million people. That’s more than Syria and Afghanistan combined. Iran is also highly urbanised compared to an Afghanistan or Syria. Most Iranians live in the major cities. The capital, Tehran, is home to about 10 million people. So, what happens if the Israelis and Americans level Tehran? Or any other major city? We’ve already seen an exodus from Tehran, after Trump told people to flee the city. Imagine even more people pouring out of Iran as refugees. Even if 10% of Iranians are forced to flee the country, that’s over 9 million people. About one-and-a-half times the number of Syrian or Afghan refugees worldwide.
Some Iranian citizens are of Azerbaijani ethnicity. They might seek refuge in Azerbaijan or even Türkiye. There are also Iranian Arabs, who may decide to go to Arab nations. But the majority Iranian Shia population probably won’t be welcomed in neighbouring nations, like Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, or even Pakistan with its history of minority persecution and blasphemy laws. So, for most Iranians, that leaves Shia-majority Iraq, linguistically similar Tajikistan, or wherever they have family among the diasporas.
A war on Iran could trigger a refugee crisis that will shake the global demography. Countries are likely to struggle economically to support the waves of refugees. And this has the potential to lead to political instability and persecution. This is what the world is staring on the 25th World Refugee Day. Another refugee crisis, brought about by Israel’s war on Iran.
