The number of people internally displaced by armed conflict, violence and human rights violations at the end of 2012 was 28.8 million, an increase of 2.4 million people on the previous year and the highest global figure ever reported by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC). Over 6.5 million people were newly displaced inside their home countries in 2012, almost twice as many as the year before. Because these people have not crossed a border, they are not refugees and do not benefit from international protection. ''Much of the spike in the number of internally displaced people worldwide was due to the 2.4 million people displaced by the crisis within Syria by the end of 2012,'' said Kate Halff, Director of IDMC.