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The devastating Air India crash seems certain to embroil Boeing in further rounds of negative headlines at a time when it has shown progress under new leadership.Shares of the American plane manufacturer finished down nearly five percent Thursday as the pope, King Charles and the president of India expressed sorrow over the Boeing 787 Dreamliner carrying 242 people.”Our deepest condolences go out to the loved ones of the passengers and crew on board Air India Flight 171, as well as everyone affected in Ahmedabad,” said Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, adding in a statement that he told Air India’s chairman Boeing would support the probe.The calamity, the first deadly crash of a 787, comes just before Ortberg and other aerospace leaders converge at Le Bourget Airport for next week’s Paris Air Show.Prior to Thursday, industry insiders expected the focus at Le Bourget to include the aviation sector’s adaptation to trade tensions, the latest state-of-the-art flying technologies and the outlook for any improvement in the supply chain that has slowed deliveries from Boeing and rival Airbus.But the crash is also certain to be a major topic of conversation, as well as a source of speculation and sobriety.”A week from now there probably will be one or two operating hypothesis of what happened that people at the show and the public will be talking about,” said Morningstar analyst Nicolas Owens. Only time will tell what the accident means for Boeing, but Owens still expects the company to rack up additional 787 orders next week in Paris.”It’s highly improbable that people conclude that it’s a systemic problem with the engine or the plane,” he said.- MAX crashes different -Air India’s flight 171 issued a mayday call and crashed “immediately after takeoff,” the Directorate General of Civil Aviation said.British and US investigators were en route to western India for an investigation expected to involve reviews of flight data, maintenance records and the background of the crew. “When an international incident occurs, that government leads the investigation,” said the US Federal Aviation Administration.The ill-fated plane was delivered to Air India in 2014 and had more than 41,000 hours of flying time, according to consultancy Cirium.That makes Thursday’s tragedy different from the two fatal Boeing 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 that involved planes Boeing had only recently delivered to airlines.A central factor in both MAX crashes was the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), a flight handling system that badly malfunctioned, pointing to design flaws.The MAX crashes plunged Boeing into a years-long slump extended by fresh safety problems early in 2024. Boeing has reported annual losses the last six years.Since introducing the Dreamliner into service in 2011, Boeing has had to do some reworks, mainly due to assembly faults and manufacturing quality issues.The plane was also scrutinized in an April 2024 US Senate hearing that aired criticism from a whistleblower who testified that he was blackballed after reporting serious manufacturing defects on the 787 and the 777.Attorneys representing the whistleblower, Sam Salehpour, called on the FAA to release its findings about the allegations.”The FAA must assure the public that the Boeing 787 is safe,” said attorney Lisa Banks.”While it may take months or years to determine the cause of today’s tragic Air India crash, we know that there is an important report sitting on a desk at the FAA about the 787 that needs to become public.”On May 29, Ortberg told a financial conference that the recent approval by US aviation authorities to allow increased 787 output was “an important milestone” in the company’s comeback.Ortberg, who relocated to Seattle to be closer to key manufacturing operations, has generally won plaudits from aviation watchers since joining in August 2024, navigating Boeing through a labor strike and joining President Donald Trump’s Middle East delegation.Richard Aboulafia, managing director at consultancy AeroDynamic Advisory, said there is no indication of a 787 design flaw. “There’s inevitably fear,” Aboulafia said of Thursday’s stock market reaction.”It’s a tragedy but it’s unlikely to affect perceptions of the 787 because there’s nothing known at this point and it’s got a very good record,” he said.But Briefing.com called the crash “another significant blow to Boeing’s reputation as it competes fiercely with Airbus, which has outsold Boeing in aircraft orders for the past five years and could further erode investor and customer trust in the company’s ability to deliver safe, reliable aircraft.”

A Boeing 787 Dreamliner carrying 242 people crashed on Thursday after taking off from the Indian city of Ahmedabad bound for London, with officials saying that just one person on the jet survived and at least 24 people on the ground died.Police said 265 bodies had been taken to hospital in the main city of India’s western state of Gujarat.Here is what we know so far about what is believed to be the first deadly accident for Boeing’s Dreamliner:- What happened? -The Boeing 787-8 jet heading for London’s Gatwick Airport left Ahmedabad with 242 people on board, including two pilots and 10 cabin crew.Air India’s flight 171 issued a mayday call and crashed “immediately after takeoff”, around 1:40 pm (0810 GMT), India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation said.Videos posted on social media, which AFP was not able to immediately verify, showed the jet losing altitude — with its nose up — before it hit a medical staff hostel and exploded into a ball of fire.Air India said the passengers included 169 Indians, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese nationals and a Canadian.- Scenes of horror -The plane smashed into a building housing doctors and their families in a crowded residential area of Ahmedabad, a city home to about eight million people.At the site of the crash between a hospital and the Ghoda Camp neighbourhood, an AFP journalist saw people recovering bodies and firefighters spraying water on the smouldering wreckage.A resident, who declined to be named, said: “We saw people from the building jumping from the second and third floor to save themselves. The plane was in flames.””When we reached the spot there were several bodies lying around and firefighters were dousing the flames,” another resident, Poonam Patni, told AFP, adding that many of the bodies were burned.A doctor named Krishna said that “the nose and front wheel landed on the canteen building where students were having lunch.”He said he saw “about 15 to 20 burned bodies”, while he and his colleagues rescued around 15 students.- ‘One survivor’ -One survivor was confirmed by Dhananjay Dwivedi, principal secretary of Gujarat state’s health department, to AFP.Police said 265 bodies had been recovered from the site.Ahmadabad airport closed with all flights suspended until further notice.Air India chairman, Natarajan Chandrasekaran, said an emergency centre had been activated and a support team set up for families seeking information.Tata Group, owners of Air India, offered financial aid of 10 million rupees ($117,000) to the families of each victim and promised to cover the medical expenses of the injured.- Boeing investigating the incident -India’s Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said a formal investigation had been started and US plane maker Boeing said it was “working to gather more information” on the incident to help Air India.The British and US accident investigation agencies said they had sent teams to support the Indian inquiry.A source close to the case said this was the first time a 787 Dreamliner had crashed.The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is the pride of the US company’s catalogue for long-distance planes: a fuel-efficient, wide-body, lightweight aircraft able to transport up to 330 people.

The miracle report of a lone survivor from a London-bound passenger plane that crashed Thursday in the Indian city of Ahmedabad with 242 on board offered a glimmer of hope.Indian rescue teams with sniffer dogs clawed through smouldering wreckage through the night searching for clues for what had caused the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner bound for London’s Gatwick Airport to explode in a blazing fireball soon after takeoff from the western city of Ahmedabad.Bodies from Air India’s flight 171 were lifted out of the torn fuselage, as well as being pulled out of the charred buildings of the medical staff hostel that the airplane smashed into, killing several there too.The death toll currently stands at 260, police said.But hours after police said that there “appears to be no survivor in the crash”, officials reported the initially seemingly impossible account that one man had walked out alive.”One survivor is confirmed,” Dhananjay Dwivedi, principal secretary of Gujarat state’s health department, told AFP.The person was being treated in hospital, he added without further details.India’s Home Minister Amit Shah, who visited the crash site and then the hospital, said he was “pained beyond words by the tragic plane crash” in Ahmedabad, the main city in Gujarat state, where Shah is a lawmaker.But he also told reporters he had heard the “good news of the survivor” and was speaking to them “after meeting him”.Indian media widely reported the survivor had been sitting in seat 11A, after videos shared on social media showed a man — in a bloodied t-shirt and limping, but walking towards an ambulance.He shared a boarding card that named him as Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a 40-year-old British national, one of 53 UK citizens on board.AFP was not able to confirm the reports, but the BBC spoke to his cousin in the city of Leicester, Ajay Valgi, who reported that Ramesh had called his family to say he was “fine”.Britain’s Press Association news agency also spoke to his brother, Nayan Kumar Ramesh, 27, also in Leicester.”He said, I have no idea how I exited the plane”, his brother told PA.- Heartbreaking loss -But while Ramesh’s reported survival offered a chance of hope, stories also flooded in of heartbreaking loss: elderly parents going to visit children in Britain, or family returning home.Air India is organising relief flights — one from the capital New Delhi and another from financial hub Mumbai — to Ahmedabad for “the next of kin of passengers and Air India staff”, the information ministry said in a statement.They will have to take part in the grim task of identifying the bodies, many of which were reported to have been badly burned.The plane, which was full of fuel as it took off for a long-haul flight to London, exploded into a burst of orange flame, videos of the crash showed.Dwivedi, the health official, said DNA collection facilities had been set up at BJ Medical College in Ahmedabad.”DNA testing arrangements have been made”, he told reporters. “Families and close relatives of the flight passengers, especially their parents and children, are requested to submit their samples at the location so that the victims can be identified at the earliest.”burs-pjm/sst

Thick black plumes of acrid smoke towered high above India’s Ahmedabad airport Thursday after a London-bound passenger jet with 242 people aboard crashed shortly after takeoff.While officials initially said everyone aboard was feared dead, state health official Dhananjay Dwivedi told AFP later that one passenger had survived after the plane smashed into a residential area.Several videos posted on social media, which AFP was not able to immediately verify, showed an aircraft rapidly losing altitude — with its nose up — before it hit a building and exploded into an orange ball of fire.Authorities said it went down outside the airport perimeter, in a crowded residential area, while an AFP reporter in the city said the plane crashed between a hospital and the city’s Ghoda Camp neighbourhood.A medic described how the burning plane had smashed into a residential block that is home to medical students and young doctors.”One half of the plane crashed into the residential building where doctors lived with their families,” said Krishna, a doctor who gave only one name, adding he saw “about 15-20 burnt bodies” in the wreckage and debris.It was not clear whether the dead he had seen had been killed on board the plane, or had been in the building the aircraft ploughed into.- Bodies burned -“The nose and front wheel landed on the canteen building where students were having lunch,” he said, adding he and colleagues had “rescued some 15 students from the building and sent them to hospital”.”When we reached the spot there were several bodies lying around and firefighters were dousing the flames,” resident Poonam Patni told AFP.”Many of the bodies were burned”, she added.Another resident, who declined to be named, said: “We saw people from the building jumping from the second and third floor to save themselves. The plane was in flames.”We helped people get out of the building and sent the injured to the hospital.”Air India’s flight 171 — a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner bound for London’s Gatwick Airport — crashed shortly after takeoff around 1:40 pm (0810 GMT), officials said.The passengers included 169 Indian nationals, 53 British, seven Portuguese, and a Canadian. Two pilots and 10 cabin crew were also aboard.Rescue teams supported by the military had recovered 204 bodies, city police commissioner GS Malik told AFP, with people aboard the plane and those on the ground among the dead.Some 41 people were being treated at local hospitals.- ‘Massive sound’ -At the crash site, firefighters could be seen trying to control flames on the burning plane debris that also charred trees.One video, from social media but posted by the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency, showed what appeared to be a chunk of fuselage — larger than a car — that had smashed onto the roof of a multi-storey building.Photographs released by India’s Central Industrial Security Force, a paramilitary police force, showed a large chunk of the plane that had smashed through the brick and concrete wall of a building. “I was at home when we heard a massive sound,” one Ahmedabad resident told PTI.”When we went out to see what had happened, there was a layer of thick smoke in the air. When we came here, dead bodies and debris from the crashed aircraft were scattered all over.”Outside Ahmedabad airport, a woman wailing inconsolably in grief said that five of her relatives had been aboard the plane.

A London-bound passenger plane crashed in the Indian city of Ahmedabad on Thursday leaving one known survivor from 242 on board, with the jet smashing into buildings housing doctors and their families.An AFP journalist saw bodies being recovered from the crash site, and the back of the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner hanging over the edge of a building it hit around lunchtime.”The tragedy in Ahmedabad has stunned and saddened us. It is heartbreaking beyond words,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said after Air India’s flight 171 crashed following takeoff.The bodies of passengers and victims on the ground were among 204 recovered so far, city police commissioner GS Malik said, while medics were treating dozens who were injured in the city.While everyone aboard the flight was initially feared killed, state health official Dhananjay Dwivedi told AFP “one survivor is confirmed” and had been hospitalised.The AFP journalist saw a building ablaze after the crash, with thick black smoke billowing into the air, and a section of the plane on the ground.”One half of the plane crashed into the residential building where doctors lived with their families,” said Krishna, a doctor who did not give his full name.”The nose and front wheel landed on the canteen building where students were having lunch,” he said.Krishna said he saw “about 15 to 20 burnt bodies”, while he and his colleagues rescued around 15 students.India’s civil aviation authority said there were 242 people aboard, including two pilots and 10 cabin crew. Air India said there were 169 Indian passengers, 53 British, seven Portuguese, and a Canadian on board the flight bound for London’s Gatwick airport.UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the scenes from the crash were “devastating”, while the country’s King Charles III said he was “desperately shocked”.- ‘Devastating’ -The plane issued a mayday call and “crashed immediately after takeoff”, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation said.Ahmedabad, the main city of India’s Gujarat state, is home to around eight million people and the busy airport is surrounded by densely packed residential areas.”When we reached the spot there were several bodies lying around and firefighters were dousing the flames,” resident Poonam Patni told AFP.”Many of the bodies were burned,” she said.The AFP journalist saw medics using a cart to load bodies into an ambulance, while a charred metal bed frame stood surrounded by burnt wreckage.The plane came down in an area between a hospital and the city’s Ghoda Camp neighbourhood.The airport was shut, with all flights “suspended until further notice”, its operator said.US planemaker Boeing said it was in touch with Air India and stood “ready to support them” over the incident, which a source close to the case said was the first crash for a 787 Dreamliner.The UK and US air accident investigation agencies announced they were each dispatching teams to support their Indian counterparts.The airline’s chairman, Natarajan Chandrasekaran, said an emergency centre had been set up with a support team for families seeking information.Tata Group, owners of Air India, offered financial aid of 10 million rupees ($117,000) to “the families of each person who has lost their life in this tragedy”, as well as promising to cover the medical expenses of those injured.India has suffered a series of fatal air crashes, including a 1996 disaster when two jets collided mid-air over New Delhi, killing nearly 350 people.In 2010, an Air India Express jet crashed and burst into flames at Mangalore airport in southwest India, killing 158 of the 166 passengers and crew on board.Experts said it was too early to speculate on what may have caused Thursday’s crash.”It is very unlikely that the plane was overweight or carrying too much fuel,” said Jason Knight, senior lecturer in fluid mechanics at the University of Portsmouth.”The aircraft is designed to be able to fly on one engine, so the most likely cause of the crash is a double engine failure. The most likely cause of a double engine failure is a bird strike.”India’s airline industry has boomed in recent years with Willie Walsh, director general of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), last month calling it “nothing short of phenomenal”.The growth of its economy has made India and its 1.4 billion people the world’s fourth-largest air market — domestic and international — with IATA projecting it will become the third biggest within the decade.

A London-bound passenger plane crashed in the Indian city of Ahmedabad on Thursday and all 242 people on board were believed killed, with the jet smashing into buildings housing doctors and their families.An AFP journalist saw people recovering bodies and firefighters trying to douse the smouldering wreckage after the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner hit buildings during lunchtime.”The tragedy in Ahmedabad has stunned and saddened us. It is heartbreaking beyond words,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said after Air India’s flight 171 crashed after takeoff.City police commissioner GS Malik told AFP there “appears to be no survivor in the crash”. Rescue teams supported by the military had “found 204 bodies”, he said, with people aboard the plane and those on the ground among the dead.The AFP journalist saw a section of the plane lying on the ground and a building ablaze, with thick black smoke billowing into the air.”One half of the plane crashed into the residential building where doctors lived with their families,” said Krishna, a doctor who did not give his full name.”The nose and front wheel landed on the canteen building where students were having lunch,” he said.Krishna said he saw “about 15 to 20 burnt bodies”, while he and his colleagues rescued around 15 students.India’s civil aviation authority said there were 242 people aboard, including two pilots and 10 cabin crew. Air India said there were 169 Indian passengers, 53 British, seven Portuguese, and a Canadian on board the flight bound for London Gatwick.UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the scenes from the crash were “devastating”, while the country’s King Charles III said he was “desperately shocked”.- ‘Devastating’ -The plane issued a mayday call and “crashed immediately after takeoff” outside the airport perimeter, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation said.Ahmedabad, the main city of India’s Gujarat state, is home to around eight million people and the busy airport is surrounded by densely packed residential areas.”When we reached the spot there were several bodies lying around and firefighters were dousing the flames,” resident Poonam Patni told AFP.”Many of the bodies were burned,” she said.The AFP journalist saw medics using a cart to load bodies into an ambulance, while a charred metal bed frame stood surrounded by burnt wreckage.A photograph published by India’s Central Industrial Security Force, a national security agency, showed the tail of the plane jutting from a building.The plane came down in an area between a hospital and the city’s Ghoda Camp neighbourhood.The airport was shut, with all flights “suspended until further notice”, its operator said.US planemaker Boeing said it was in touch with Air India and stood “ready to support them” over the incident, which a source close to the case said was the first crash for a 787 Dreamliner.Air India ordered 100 more Airbus planes last year after a giant contract in 2023 for 470 aircraft — 250 Airbus and 220 Boeing. The airline’s chairman, Natarajan Chandrasekaran, said an emergency centre had been set up with a support team for families seeking information.”Our thoughts and deepest condolences are with the families and loved ones of all those affected by this devastating event,” he said.India has suffered a series of fatal air crashes, including a 1996 disaster when two jets collided mid-air over New Delhi, killing nearly 350 people.In 2010, an Air India Express jet crashed and burst into flames at Mangalore airport in southwest India, killing 158 of the 166 passengers and crew on board.India’s airline industry has boomed in recent years with Willie Walsh, director general of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), last month calling it “nothing short of phenomenal”.The growth of its economy has made India and its 1.4 billion people the world’s fourth-largest air market — domestic and international — with IATA projecting it will become the third biggest within the decade.India’s domestic air passenger traffic reached a milestone last year by “surpassing 500,000 passengers in a single day”, according to India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation.

Legendary Pakistan cricketer Wasim Akram saluted on Thursday the “effort” of the artist who created a statue of him that has spawned scorn on social media.The statue of Akram –- one of the greatest left-arm fast bowlers to play the game -– was installed outside the southwestern city of Hyderabad’s Niaz Stadium in April.Akram is shown bowling wearing the kit of the 1999 World Cup team, when Pakistan were runners-up.Nearby is a statue of a tiger.One fan mocked the statue, saying: “The only thing that looks real is the ball,” adding the face looked more like Hollywood hero Sylvester Stallone.The affable Akram, however, took to social media to praise the effort.”Lots of talk about my sculpture being erected at Niaz Stadium, Hyderabad. Mine is definitely better than the tiger,” he posted on X.”It’s the idea that matters. Credit to the creators, full marks for the effort and thanks to everyone involved.”Australia has a history of placing statues of their iconic players outside their stadiums, while India unveiled one of master batter Sachin Tendulkar outside a stadium in Mumbai in 2023.Niaz stadium chief Shiraz Leghari told AFP: “The artist did his best effort, but accepts it doesn’t resemble (Akram) a hundred percent.”Akram is one of the country’s most celebrated cricketers, having represented Pakistan in 104 Tests and 356 ODIs with 414 and 502 wickets respectively. He was the leading wicket-taker in the 1992 World Cup when Pakistan claimed the trophy.

Air India’s London-bound flight 171 that crashed on Thursday with 242 people on board was a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, part of India’s bold push to radically expand its air industry sector.The growth of its economy has made India and its 1.4 billion people the world’s fourth-largest air market — domestic and international — with IATA projecting it will become the third biggest within the decade.Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who called the crash “heartbreaking beyond words”,  has made the development of the air sector a priority since coming to power in 2014.Modi, who has said he wants to “bring air travel to the common people”, began a plan in 2016 to boost air links between small towns and megacities in the world’s most populous nation.”A common man who travels in slippers should also be seen in the aircraft — this is my dream,” Modi was quoted as saying by the aviation ministry at the time.Air India, the country’s former national carrier, was taken over by the Tata Group in 2022.The sprawling salt-to-software conglomerate has since sought to turn around the airline by ordering new aircraft and upgrading its existing fleet.The airline currently operates a fleet of over 190 planes, according to latest available data on its website, including 58 Boeing aircraft. Over the last two years it has placed orders for 570 new aircraft.In September 2024, Air India kicked off a $400 million refit programme to revamp 67 legacy aircraft in its fleet.The airline’s global network spans 31 countries across five continents, connecting India with destinations in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific.The airline says it operates about 5,000 flights a week “to and from 49 destinations within India and 43 destinations outside of India”.Domestic air passengers have more than doubled in the past decade, according to government figures, as Indian airlines quickly ramp up their fleets. This has partly helped the number of airports more than double in the past decade — from 74 in 2014 to 157 in 2024, according to ministry figures. The government is pouring in millions of dollars and is promising to increase the number of airports to between 350 and 400 by 2047, the centenary of India’s independence.At the same time, the government has opened programmes to train some 30,000 pilots and at least as many mechanics over the next 20 years.

A London-bound passenger plane crashed Thursday in India’s western city of Ahmedabad with 242 on board, aviation officials said in what the airline called a “tragic accident”.Air India’s flight 171, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner bound for London Gatwick crashed shortly after takeoff, officials said.India’s aviation minister said he was “shocked and devastated” by the crash in Ahmedabad, where an AFP journalist saw thick plumes of black smoke over the airport.India’s civil aviation authority said there were 242 people aboard, including two pilots and 10 cabin crew. Air India said there were 169 Indian passengers, 53 British, seven Portuguese, and a Canadian. The plane issued a mayday call and “crashed immediately after takeoff”, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation said.The authority said it crashed outside the airport perimeter. Ahmedabad, the main city of India’s Gujarat state, is home of around eight million people, and the busy airport is surrounded by densely packed residential areas. Aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu directed “all aviation and emergency response agencies to take swift and coordinated action.””Rescue teams have been mobilised, and all efforts are being made to ensure medical aid and relief support are being rushed to the site,” he added. “My thoughts and prayers are with all those on board and their families.”- ‘Profound sorrow’ -“Our thoughts and deepest condolences are with the families and loved ones of all those affected by this devastating event,” said the airline chairman.An emergency centre has been activated and a support team set up for families seeking information, he added.India has suffered a series of fatal air crashes, including a 1996 disaster when two jets collided mid-air over New Delhi, killing nearly 350 people.In 2010 an Air India Express jet crashed and burst into flames at Mangalore airport in southwest India, killing 158 of the 166 passengers and crew on board.Decades earlier, an Air India Boeing 747 flying from Montreal to London in June 1985 crashed into the sea off Ireland with 329 people on board and leaving no survivors.An Indian commission determined that militant Sikhs had planted a bomb in baggage being carried by the plane.India’s airline industry has boomed in recent years with Willie Walsh, director general of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), last month calling growth “nothing short of phenomenal”.The growth of its economy has made India and its 1.4 billion people the world’s fourth-largest air market — domestic and international — with IATA projecting it will become the third biggest within the decade.Air India ordered 100 more Airbus planes last year after a giant contract in 2023 for 470 aircraft — 250 Airbus and 220 Boeing. India’s domestic air passenger traffic reached a milestone last year by “surpassing 500,000 passengers in a single day”, according to India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation.

The number of people forcibly displaced from their homes worldwide has dropped slightly from a record peak but remains “untenably high”, the United Nations said Thursday.A record 123.2 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced from their homes at the end of 2024, said UNHCR, the UN refugee agency.But that figure dropped to 122.1 million by the end of April this year, as Syrians began returning home after years of turmoil.More than 1.5 million Syrians have been able to return home from abroad or from displacement within the war-ravaged country.But the UNHCR warned that the course of major conflicts worldwide would determine whether the figure would rise again.The agency said the number of people displaced by war, violence and persecution worldwide was “untenably high”, particularly in a period when humanitarian funding is evaporating.”We are living in a time of intense volatility in international relations, with modern warfare creating a fragile, harrowing landscape marked by acute human suffering,” said Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.”We must redouble our efforts to search for peace and find long-lasting solutions for refugees and others forced to flee their homes.”- Sudan overtakes Syria -The main drivers of displacement remain sprawling conflicts like those in Sudan, Myanmar and Ukraine, UNHCR said in its flagship annual Global Trends Report.Syria’s brutal civil war erupted in 2011 but ruler Bashar al-Assad was finally overthrown in December 2024.The report said rising numbers of Syrians have since been able to return to their homes.As of mid-May, more than 500,000 Syrians are estimated to have crossed back into the country since the fall of Assad, while an estimated 1.2 million internally displaced people (IDPs) have returned to their areas of origin since the end of November.UNHCR estimates that up to 1.5 million Syrians from abroad and two million IDPs may return by the end of 2025.Sudan is now the world’s largest forced displacement situation with 14.3 million refugees and IDPs, overtaking Syria (13.5 million), which is followed by Afghanistan (10.3 million) and Ukraine (8.8 million).”During the remainder of 2025, much will depend on the dynamics in key situations,” the annual report said, including whether peace or ceasefires can be reached in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Ukraine.It also depends on whether conditions for returns improve in Afghanistan and Syria.Another factor was “how dire the impact of the current funding cuts will be”.The United States was by far UNHCR’s biggest donor but has dramatically scaled back its overseas aid, while other countries are tightening their budgets.”The failure to protect civilians is astounding,” said Norwegian Refugee Council chief Jan Egeland.”Despite the immense suffering of displaced people, we are now seeing many countries turn inwards, making drastic cuts to humanitarian funding.”- One in 67 -The number of people forced to flee persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations and events seriously disturbing public order has almost doubled in the last decade.The figure of 123.2 million worldwide at the end of last year was up seven million compared to the end of 2023.”One in 67 people globally were forcibly displaced at the end of 2024,” UNHCR said.In total, 9.8 million forcibly displaced people returned home in 2024, including 1.6 million refugees — the most for more than two decades — and 8.2 million IDPs — the second highest ever.”We have seen some rays of hope over the last six months,” said Grandi.But countries such as the DR Congo, Myanmar and South Sudan saw significant new forced displacements as well as returns.Two-thirds of refugees stay in neighbouring countries.Iran (3.5 million), Turkey (2.9 million), Colombia (2.8 million), Germany (2.7 million) and Uganda (1.8 million) host the largest refugee populations.