A UNHCR report released today in commemoration of World Refugee Day, shows that widespread forced displacement around the world due to war, conflict and persecution has reached the highest level ever recorded, and is showing a rapid increase.
UNHCR’s latest annual Global Trends Report shows a sharp increase in the number of people forced to flee their homes, with 59.5 million people displaced at the end of 2014, compared to 51.2 million and 37.5 million in the previous year. million a decade earlier. The increase in numbers since 2013 is the highest increase ever in one year.
The rapid increase in numbers began in early 2011 when the war in Syria broke out, making it the single largest driver of forced displacement worldwide. In 2014, every day around 42,500 people became refugees, asylum seekers, or internally displaced persons, which was a fourfold increase in just four years. Worldwide, one in every 122 humans is currently a refugee, internally displaced person, or asylum seeker. If this were the population of a country, it would be the 24th largest country in the world.
“We are witnessing a paradigm shift, like an uncontrolled skateboard towards an era where forced displacement is global and the level of assistance needed is at a very high level and makes previous conditions seem insignificant,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres . “It is frightening that on the one hand impunity for conflict is increasing, and on the other hand the inability of the international community to work together to stop war and build peace.”
The UNHCR report shows that from one region to another, the number of refugees and internally displaced persons has increased. In the past five years, at least 15 conflicts have broken out and are worsening: Eight in Africa (Ivory Coast, Central African Republic, Libya, Mali, North East Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, and this year Burundi); three in the Middle East (Syria, Iraq, and Yemen); one in Europe (Ukraine) and three in Asia (Kyrgyzstan, in parts of Myanmar and Pakistan). Only a few of these crises have been resolved and most still result in new displacement. In 2014, only 126,800 refugees were able to return to their countries of origin, the lowest figure in 31 years.
Meanwhile, decades-old instability and conflict in Afghanistan, Somalia and elsewhere means millions of people from these places are still displaced or – and the numbers are increasing – stranded for years as marginalized communities and shrouded in refugee uncertainty. and long-term internally displaced persons. Among the consequences of the global conflict and the severe suffering it causes, there is a dramatic increase in the number of refugees seeking safety by choosing dangerous sea journeys, including in the waters of the Mediterranean, in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, as well as in Southeast Asia.
Half of them are children
The UNHCR Global Trends Report shows that in 2014 alone, 13.9 million people were forced to move – four times the number in 2010. Worldwide, there are 19.5 million refugees (up from 16.7 million in 2013), 38 .2 million were forced to move within their own country (up from 33.3 million in 2013), and 1.8 million people were awaiting the outcome of their asylum-seeking process (compared with 1.2 million in 2013). What is very worrying is that more than half of the world’s refugees are children.
“With huge funding shortfalls and huge gaps in the global regime to protect victims of war, people in need of mercy, aid and asylum are being left behind,” Guterres said. “For this extraordinary mass forced displacement, we need an extraordinary humanitarian response and we need to renew our commitment to tolerance and protection of people fleeing conflict and persecution.”
Syria is the largest country producing both internal refugees (7.6 million people) and refugees (3.88 million as of the end of 2014). Afghanistan (2.59 million people) and Somalia (1.1 million people) are the next two largest refugee-producing countries.
Even amidst the high increase in numbers, the global distribution of refugees continues to deviate far from developed countries towards countries that are still in need. Almost nine out of every 10 refugees (86 percent) are in regions and countries that are not yet fully economically developed. A quarter of all refugees are in countries listed by the UN as having the lowest levels of development.
Asia (31% increase)
As one of the largest areas causing unwanted displacement, the number of refugees and internally displaced people in Asia increased 31 percent in 2014 to 9 million people. Afghanistan, which was previously the largest refugee producing country, has been displaced by Syria. Continued forced displacement was seen in and from Myanmar in 2014, including Rohingya groups from Rakhine Province and in the Kachin and Northern Shan regions. Iran and Pakistan remain two of the top four host countries for refugees in the world.
In Indonesia, at the same time as World Refugee Day is being commemorated with a series of events in the next two days, today UNHCR signed a memorandum of understanding with the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) to strengthen collaboration in several matters, including protecting refugees and helping to connect family ties among refugees. who was separated from his family. Currently, Indonesia hosts 13,000 refugees and asylum seekers in the country.
“We are honored to have obtained PMI’s agreement to collaborate more closely for the good of refugees and the Indonesian people who host them. Refugees are people like you and me who arrive at a time when they are forced to leave their home country to save their lives. Luckily, countries like Indonesia generously provide refugees with a temporary place to stay safely until a solution can be found for them. “Meanwhile, we hope that this strengthened collaboration with PMI and UNHCR can help refugees learn new skills, unite their families and help them be better prepared to face the future,” said Thomas Vargas, UNHCR Representative in Indonesia.
As part of this year’s commemoration, UNHCR on the first day (Friday, 19 June) opened a photo exhibition entitled “From Maritime Catastrophe to Safety: Indonesia’s Humanitarian Response” which will feature portraits of people who managed to survive after their ship was stranded at sea and highlights the individual tragedies and successes they experienced, as well as other photos showing Indonesia’s generosity towards those recently rescued from boats in Aceh. Apart from that, on Saturday, June 20, which is World Refugee Day, there will be screenings of films about refugees, namely “Mary Meets Mohammad” and “Women Lead the Way”.
Europe (51% increase)
The conflict in Ukraine, 219,000 crossings in the Mediterranean and the large number of Syrian refugees in Turkey – which in 2014 became the largest refugee hosting country in the world with 1.59 million Syrian refugees at the end of the year – have created increasing public attention, both positive and negative . In the European Union, the largest volume of asylum requests is in Germany and Sweden. In general, the number of forced displacement in Europe reached 6.7 million at the end of the year, (while in 2013 the number was only 4.4 million) with the largest proportions being Syrian refugees in Turkey and Ukrainian refugees in the Russian Federation.
Middle East and North Africa (19% increase)
The huge suffering from the Syrian war, which caused 7.6 million people to become refugees within their own country and 3.88 million people to move between regions as refugees, has made the Middle East the largest producing region and also the largest host for people who have been forced to move. Apart from the large number caused by Syria, in Iraq there were at least 2.6 million new people who experienced forced displacement, where as a result around 3.6 million people became refugees in their own country at the end of 2014, and 309,000 people experienced new displacement in Libya.
Sub-Saharan Africa (17% increase)
Often overlooked, the various conflicts in Africa, including in the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and others, combined produced a large total of forced displacement in 2014, on a scale slightly lower than that in the Middle East . Overall, Sub-Saharan Africa has 3.7 million refugees and 11.4 million internally displaced persons, 4.5 million of whom were displaced in 2014 alone. The overall increase of 17 percent does not include Nigeria, because the method for calculating internal movement itself changed in 2014 making it statistically impossible. Ethiopia replaced Kenya as the country hosting the largest number of refugees in Africa and the fifth largest in the world.
America (12% increase)
America is also experiencing an increase in forced displacement. The number of Colombian refugees decreased by 36,300 to 360,300 in one year, although much of this was due to revisions in the reporting of the number of refugees in Venezuela. Despite this, Colombia remains one of the countries with the highest population of internally displaced persons in the world, with 6 million people, 137,000 of whom were forced to migrate in 2014. With many people fleeing inter-group violence, the United States received an increase in asylum requests, 36,800 more than in 2013, or an increase of 44 percent.
The full Global Trends Report covering this and other information, including data on individual countries, demographics, the number of people returning to their countries of origin, and estimates of the stateless population is available at http://www.unhcr.org/2014trends .
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