40.8 million across world displaced by conflicts

The number of people internally displaced by conflicts around the world rose last year to a record 40.8 million people, a report out on Wednesday showed.

"This is the highest figure ever recorded and twice the number of refugees worldwide," said Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, co-authors of the report with the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Center.

Some 8.6 million internally displaced people linked to conflict were recorded in 2015, including 4.8 million in the Middle East and North Africa.