World Refugee Day: Global forced displacement tops 50 million by UNHCR, the UN refugee agency 12:03am 20th Jun, 2014   UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, protects and assists people fleeing conflict or violence.    20 June 2014    The UN refugee agency reported today on World Refugee Day that the number of refugees, asylum-seekers and internally displaced people worldwide has, for the first time in the post-World War II era, exceeded 50 million people.    UNHCR''''s annual Global Trends report, which is based on data compiled by governments and non-governmental partner organizations, and from the organization''s own records, shows 51.2 million people were forcibly displaced at the end of 2013, fully 6 million more than the 45.2 million reported in 2012.    This massive increase was driven mainly by the war in Syria, which at the end of last year had forced 2.5 million people into becoming refugees and made 6.5 million internally displaced. Major new displacement was also seen in Africa – notably in Central African Republic and South Sudan.    "We are seeing here the immense costs of not ending wars, of failing to resolve or prevent conflict," said UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres. "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."    The worldwide total of 51.2 million forcibly displaced represents a huge number of people in need of help, with implications both for foreign aid budgets in the world''''s donor nations and the absorption and hosting capacities of countries on the front lines of refugee crises.    "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. Non-traditional donors need to step up alongside traditional donors. As many people are forcibly displaced today as the entire populations of medium-to-Iarge countries such as Colombia or Spain, South Africa or South Korea," said Guterres.    Displacement data in the annual report covers refugees, asylum-seekers and the internally displaced. Among these, refugee numbers amounted to 16.7 million people worldwide, 11.7 million of whom are under UNHCR''s care and the remainder registered with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine. These totals alone are the highest UNHCR has seen since 2001. In addition, more than half of the refugees under UNHCR''s care (6.3 million) had at end 2013 been in exile for more than five years.    Overall, the biggest refugee populations under UNHCR care and by source country are Afghans, Syrians and Somalis – together accounting for more than half of the global refugee total. Pakistan, Iran and Lebanon, meanwhile, hosted more refugees than other countries.    By region, Asia and the Pacific had the largest refugee population overall at 3.5 million people. Sub-Saharan Africa had 2.9 million people, while the Middle East and North Africa had 2.6 million.    In addition to refugees, 2013 saw 1.1 million people submitting applications for asylum, the majority of these in developed countries (Germany became the largest single recipient of new asylum claims). A record 25,300 asylum applications were from children who were separated from or unaccompanied by parents. Syrians lodged 64,300 claims, more than any other nationality, followed by asylum seekers from Democratic Republic of the Congo (60,400) and Myanmar (57,400).    Internal displacement – people forced to flee to other parts of their country – amounted to a record 33.3 million people, accounting for the largest increase of any group in the Global Trends report. For UNHCR and other humanitarian actors, helping these people represents a special challenge as many are in conflict zones.    Part of UNHCR''s work is finding long-term solutions for people who become forcibly displaced. Where possible this is through voluntary return, but other possibilities include local integration or resettlement in third countries. The year 2013 saw the fourth lowest level of refugee returns in almost a quarter century – 414,600 people. Some 98,400 refugees were resettled in 21 countries. Full worldwide data on local integration and returns of internally displaced people (IDP) was not available although 1.4 million of them returned home in countries where UNHCR is operational with IDPs.    The worldwide population of stateless people is not included in the figure of 51.2 million forcibly displaced people (since being stateless doesn''t necessarily correlate to being displaced). Statelessness remains hard to quantify with precision, but for 2013, UNHCR''s offices worldwide reported a figure of almost 3.5 million stateless people. This is about a third of the number of people estimated to be stateless globally.    June 2013    The number of forcibly displaced people in the world continues to rise. There are now more than 45 million refugees and internally displaced people – the highest level in nearly 20 years. Last year alone, someone was forced to abandon their home every four seconds.    War remains the dominant cause, with the crisis in Syria a leading instance of major displacement. More than half of all refugees listed in a new report by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees come from just five war-affected countries: Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Syria and Sudan. Major new displacements have also been occurring in Mali and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.    Figures give only a glimpse of this enormous human tragedy. Every day, conflict tears apart the lives of thousands of families. They may be forced to leave loved ones behind or become separated in the chaos of war. Children suffer the most. Nearly half of all refugees are below age 18, and a growing number are fleeing on their own.    Forced displacement also has a significant economic, social and, at times, political impact on the communities that provide shelter. There is a growing and deep imbalance in the burden of hosting refugees, with poor countries taking in the vast majority of the world’s uprooted people. Developing countries host 81 per cent of the world’s refugees, compared to 70 per cent a decade ago.    Finding durable solutions for the displaced will require more solidarity and burden-sharing by the international community. On World Refugee Day, I call on the international community to intensify efforts to prevent and resolve conflicts, and to help achieve peace and security so that families can be reunited and refugees can return home. - Ban Ki-moon    The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was established on December 14, 1950 by the United Nations General Assembly. The agency is mandated to lead and co-ordinate international action to protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide. Its primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees. It strives to ensure that everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another State, with the option to return home voluntarily, integrate locally or to resettle in a third country. It also has a mandate to help stateless people.    In more than six decades, the agency has helped tens of millions of people restart their lives. Today, a staff of some 8,600 people in more than 125 countries continues to help some 33.9 million persons.    http://stories.unhcr.org/ http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home http://www.unhcr.org/pages/4ac9fdae6.html Visit the related web page
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