Dubai: The number of refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced people has, for the first time since the Second World War, exceeded 50 million people globally, a UN report released today (Friday, June 20) shows.
By the end of 2013, six million more people were forcibly displaced from their homes, adding to the 45.2 million refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced people across the world, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) “Global Trend” report reveals.
War’s human cost is rapidly building up, the agency said.
“We are seeing here the immense costs of not ending wars, of failing to resolve or prevent conflict,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres.
The number of people who were forcibly displaced is approximately the same number of the population of some other medium to large countries, such as Columbia, Spain, South Africa or South Korea, UNHCR officials noted.
“Peace is today dangerously in deficit. Humanitarians can help as a palliative, but political solutions are vitally needed. Without this, the alarming levels of conflict and the mass suffering that is reflected in these figures will continue,” Guterres added in a press statement.
Already, the number of refugees and displaced people around the world has gone up since the report was written. That time, the figure was 51.2 million people.
“The figures in this report only go up to the end of 2013 … The number of people being forced to become displaced refugees and seek asylum or [end up] internally displaced is rising,” said Dan McNorton, Geneva-based spokesperson for UNHCR.
“And yes, we are concerned,” he added to Gulf News.
New major displacements of people in 2013 were driven mainly by the war in Syria, which has so far forced 2.5 million people to seek refuge outside the country and displaced another 6.5 million within their own country.
The conflicts in Central African Republic and South Sudan were also among the major displacement regions.
“The international community has to overcome its differences and find solutions to the conflicts of today in South Sudan, Syria, Central African Republic and elsewhere,” Guterres said.
Data included in the report covers three groups — refugees, asylum-seekers and the internally displaced.
While the number of internally displaced people hit a record of 33.3 million people, the refugees’ number amounted to 16.7 million people worldwide. They include 11.7 under the UNHCR’s care and five million under the care of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
While Afghanistan, Syria and Somalia constituted the three biggest countries of refugees outside their borders, Pakistan, Iran and Lebanon are the biggest hosting countries of refugees.
“By region, Asia and the pacific had the largest refugee population overall at 3.5 million people. Sub-Saharan African had 2.9 million people, while the Middle East and North Africa had 2.6 million,” noted a press statement by UNHCR.
Meanwhile, 1.1 million people have submitted applications for asylum, and Germany became in 2013 the largest single recipient of new asylum claims.
Last year saw, according to UNHCR, the lowest level of refugees returning to their countries in almost a quarter century.
On the other hand, 98,400 refugees were resettled in 21 countries. UNHCR has appealed to different countries to admit up to 30,000 Syrian refugees on resettlement, humanitarian admission or other programmes by the end of 2014.
Commenting on the resettlement of refugees, McNorton said “the resettlement in terms of places that are available worldwide is very small in comparison to the number of applications that are made and the needs that are there for refugees”.
However, he stressed that there are many programmes for different nationalities, and not only Syria.
