The number of internally displaced people around the world reached a record 71.1 million last year due to conflicts including Ukraine and climate disasters like the monsoon floods in Pakistan, according a new report.

The Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre said that figure showed a 20 percent increase since 2021, with an unprecedented number of people leaving there homes in search of safety and shelter.

The report says that nearly 75 percent of the world's displaced people live in 10 countries, including Syria, Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ukraine and Sudan, due to conflicts that triggered widespread displacement in 2022.

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The Ukraine conflict prompted nearly 17 million displacements last year, it says.

"Conflict and violence triggered 28.3 million internal displacements worldwide, a figure three times higher than the annual average over the past decade," the report said.

The majority of displacements last year - 32.6 million - was due to disasters including floods, droughts and landslides.

"Conflict and disasters combined last year to aggravate people's pre-existing vulnerabilities and inequalities, triggering displacement on a scale never seen before," said Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, which set up IDMC.

"The war in Ukraine also fueled a global food security crisis that hit the internally displaced hardest. This perfect storm has undermined years of progress made in reducing global hunger and malnutrition."

After a year in which conflicts has ravaged Ukraine, Syria and other countries, there has been little respite in 2023, with the UN migration agency saying this week that 700,000 people have already been internally displaced by the Sudan conflict.

The IDMC also said the La Nina weather phenomenon was also as a major factor in disaster displacements, contributing to to record levels of flood displacement in Pakistan, Nigeria and Brazil as well as the worst drought on record in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia.

Egeland described the situation as a "perfect storm" of conflict and natural disasters.

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