Displaced population at record highs

Number of people who fled man-made tragedy hit 68.5 million in 2017

For the fifth year in a row, war, violence and persecution have driven more people out of their homes, pushing the number of displaced people worldwide to an unprecedented high of 68.5 million, up by 3 million from 2016, the United Nations says.

In 2017, one person fled their home every two seconds due to man-made tragedies with the total number of forcibly displaced people almost equalling the entire population of Thailand, said the UN Refugee Agency’s annual Global Trends Report, released Tuesday, on the eve of World Refugee Day.

Of those, 25.4 million were refugees, who fled to another country to escape conflict and persecution, up by 2.9 million from the year before. Asylum seekers, who were still waiting for the outcome of their claims, rose by 300,000 to 3.1 million during the same period.

“We are at a watershed, where success in managing forced displacement globally requires a new and far more comprehensive approach so that countries and communities aren’t left dealing with this alone,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said in a statement.

“No one becomes a refugee by choice, but the rest of us can have a choice about how we help.”

According to the report, 85 per cent of refugees were housed last year in developing countries, many of which are themselves extremely poor and receive little international support to care for these populations.

Africa (excluding North Africa) sheltered 31.4 per cent of the world’s refugees; the Asia Pacific region, 21.1 per cent; and the Middle East and North Africa, 13.6 per cent. Although Europe hosted 30.7 per cent of the refugee population, more than half of them were in Turkey. The Americas were home to only 3.2 per cent of refugees.

Refugees from 10 countries made up 82 per cent of those under the UN’s mandate: Syria; Afghanistan; South Sudan; Myanmar; Somalia; Sudan; the Congo; Central African Republic; Eritrea and Burundi.

The global displaced population is young — 53 per cent are children, including many who are unaccompanied or separated from their families.

Some 5 million people, both the internally displaced and refugees, were able to return to their homes in 2017, according to the report, but only 102,800 were resettled to a third country, down 47 per cent from 2016.

The United States was the largest recipient of new asylum claims at its border, just ahead of Germany and Italy. Afghans submitted the most number of refugee claims, closely followed by Syrians, Iraqis and Venezuelans.

Grandi said 14 of the 193 UN member states who supported the 2016 New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants are already pioneering a new blueprint on their own for responding to refugee crises, and later this year a new “Global Compact on Refugees” will be released for state members to adopt. The objective of the pact is to promote a more comprehensive international effort in protecting those who flee their homes and in supporting the refugee-hosting countries.

“On the eve of World Refugee Day, my message to member states is please support this,” Grandi said.