UN: 1% of global population displaced by violence

War, violence and persecution drove worldwide forced displacement to another new high in 2019, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said in a new report. The “Annual Global Trends Report” released yesterday, shows that nearly 79.5 million people were displaced at the end of 2019. With 100 million people newly displaced during the course of a decade, the past ten years saw the highest number of people fleeing conflict zones.

Overwhelmingly it is developing countries that are most affected. For the first time in history one per cent of humanity is uprooted, the report found. The current figure of 79.5 million displaced people around the world is twice as many as a decade ago. Some 26 million are refugees but the majority are displaced in their own country.

Syria, nine years since war erupted in the county, is still the world’s biggest displacement crisis. It’s amongst the five countries that make up two-thirds of people displaced across borders. Afghanistan, Venezuela, South Sudan and Myanmar are the other four.

With 3.6 million refugees, Turkey hosts more refugees than any other country. Columbia is second with 1.8 million. Germany, housing 1.1 million mainly Syrian refugees, is the only western state in the top five countries hosting the largest number of refugees.

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The report drew attention to the human cost of displacement. Women are at much higher risk of being raped. Child labour is also a major issue. Half of all displaced populations are children. They are not given access to education and are often exposed to violence and exploitation.

Last year, UNHCR counted more than 150,000 child refugees that were unaccompanied or separated from their families. While 80 per cent of people that are displaced reside in countries that suffer from acute food insecurity and extreme climate change.

The reasons why numbers of displaced populations continue to rise are many. For those fleeing conflict and persecution, options to return to their place of origin and rebuild their lives is very limited, while opportunities for resettlement schemes in a third country are way short of need.

Tens of millions of people remain in exile for years on end in countries and communities that are poor and struggling themselves.

UNHCR urged countries to easy asylum. According to the refugee agency there are currently 4.2 million people waiting for their application to be processed.

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