"The war on terror" displaced at least 37 million people, a report said

Shafaq News/ Conflicts with US military involvement have displaced at least 37 million people since the beginning of the "war on terror" nearly two decades ago, a report issued by Brown University’s said.

The Guardian newspaper quoted the report saying that the invasion of Iraq and the decades of instability that have followed in the country have uprooted at least 9.2 million so far, the costliest of the eight US military operations that were included in the report.

Drawing on data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, among others, the project estimated 7.1 million people had been displaced in Syria, 5.3 million in Afghanistan, 4.4 million in Yemen, 4.2 million in Somalia, 3.7 million in Pakistan, 1.7 million in the Philippines and 1.2 million in Libya.

It said an estimated 25.3 million people had returned since being displaced, but noted: “Return does not erase the trauma of displacement or mean that those displaced have returned to their original homes or to a secure life.”

The project’s other research has estimated that more than 800,000 people have died in conflicts with US involvement due to direct war violence along with at least 335,000 civilians, and that the engagements have cost the US treasury an estimated $6.4tn (£4.9tn).