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Study Shows War On Terror Displaced 37 Million People, More Than Any War, Except WWII Since 1900

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Adam Barnes General Assignment Reporter
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Researchers at Brown University found that the U.S. war on terror has displaced 37-million people since Sept. 11, 2001, according to a study released Tuesday.

The ‘Costs of War’ project at Brown, which claims to be the first of its kind, notes that the number of displaced persons is higher than any other war, except World War 2, since 1900, according to The Hill.

According to the research, 37 million displaced “in and from Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, Libya, and Syria” is a “very conservative estimate.” The number might be closer to 48 million to 59 million, the Hill reported.

U.S. military involvement was not the only reason for displacement in these countries, per the Hill, but it was a “dominant or contributing factor.” The estimate excludes millions displaced by smaller U.S. combat operations in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Niger, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia, per The Hill. (RELATED: Biden Says He ‘Didn’t Believe’ Saddam Had Nuclear Weapons But Still Voted To Invade Iraq)

“It tells us that U.S. involvement in these countries has been horrifically catastrophic, horrifically damaging in ways that I don’t think that most people in the United States, in many ways myself included, have grappled with or reckoned with in even the slightest terms, David Vine, a professor of anthropology at American University and the lead author of the report, told the New York Times.

To determine the number of the displaced, scholars from American University collected data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, and other organizations, according to The New York Times.

The Costs of War report estimates that 25.3 million people returned home, but the number includes children born to refugee parents, the Times reported.