The number of forcibly displaced people around the world has risen to a record 110 million, the head of the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said, and conflicts in Ukraine and Sudan are forcing millions to flee their homes, reports RTE.
By the end of last year, nearly 19 million people had risen to 108.4 million, the largest annual jump on record, UNHCR said in a report released today.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi told reporters the eight-week conflict in Sudan has pushed the number to 110 million.
“It’s quite an indictment on the state of our world to have to report that. Solutions to these movements are increasingly difficult to even imagine, to even put on the table. We are in a very polarised world, where international tensions play out all the way into humanitarian issues,” he said at a Geneva press conference, reports RTE.
Almost half of all refugees and people in need of international protection come from just three countries: Syria, Ukraine and Afghanistan.
Mr Grandy expressed concern about stricter rules for admitting and pushing back refugees.
“We see increasingly a reluctance on the part of states to fully adhere to the principles of the (1951 refugee) convention, even states that have signed it,” Mr Grandi told Reuters on the sidelines of the briefing, reports RTE.
A total of 35.3 million refugees who have fled abroad and 62.5 million internally displaced by 2022.
5.4 million asylum seekers and another 5.2 million others – mostly from Venezuela – were in need of international protection.
Grundy said the UK’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda to process cases was “not a good idea”.
Mr Grandi called for urgent global action to reduce the causes and effects of displacement, saying UNHCR was “not in a good financial situation this year”, reports RTE.
UNHCR’s internal appeals on the Sudan crisis are only 16% funded and appeals to host countries are 13% funded.
Some 467,000 people have fled Sudan and more than 1.4 million have been internally displaced since fighting between the warring parties began in mid-April.
Among the one million refugees planned to flee Sudan in six months, he said: “Now I think it’s not enough.”
By the end of 2022, there were 6.5 million Syrian refugees, 3.5 million of them in neighboring Turkey.
There were 5.7 million Ukrainian refugees, and the Russian invasion in February 2022 led to the fastest refugee influx since World War II, reports RTE.
Last year, more than 339,000 refugees returned to 38 countries and 5.7 million internally displaced people returned home.
The countries receiving the most refugees are Turkey (3.6 million), Iran (3.4 million), Colombia (2.5 million), Germany (2.1 million) and Pakistan (1.7 million).
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