DAVID ADAMS reports on new UN figures showing the number of people displaced from their homes due to conflict and persecution around the world continues to reach unprecedented levels…
The number of people displaced from their homes due to conflict and persecution continued to grow to unprecedented levels in 2015 with the UN refugee agency’s latest report putting the figure at 65.3 million people at the year’s end, five million people more than at the end of 2014.
The Global Trends 2015 report, compiled by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and released to mark World Refugee Day on Monday, shows that of the 65.3 million people, 21.3 million are classified as refugees, 3.2 million as asylum seekers and 40.8 million as people displaced from their homes but still in their own countries.
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Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon meets with refugees at the Kara Tepe refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos. He also met with local volunteers and authorities during his visit, which came just ahead of World Refugee Day on 20th June. PICTURE: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas “(D)ivisive political rhetoric on asylum and migration issues, rising xenaphobia, and restrictions on access to asylum have become increasingly visible in certain regions, and the spirit of shared responsibility has been replaced by a hate-filled narrative of intolerance. We see a worrisome increase in the use of detention and in the construction of fences and other barriers.”– UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon |
This unprecedented level of displaced people means one in every 113 people on the planet is a refugee, asylum seeker or internally displaced – a figure larger than the combined populations of Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
The report shows that, on average, 24 people fled their homes every minute during 2015, four times more than the rate of a decade earlier. A total of 12.4 million people were estimated to have been newly displaced from their homes in 2015.
Three countries – Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia – account for half of the world’s current refugees and while much of the media attention in recent times has focused on the million refugees and migrants who arrived in Europe last year, the data shows that 86 per cent of all UNHCR registered refugees remained in low and middle-income countries close to the cause of conflicts.
Turkey hosted the largest number at 2.5 million refugees while Lebanon has the highest proportion with one refugee living in the country for every five citizens.
Shockingly, children make up 51 per cent of all refugees, many of whom are unaccompanied – a figure which, although unchanged from 2014, was up from 41 per cent in 2009.
Colombia, meanwhile, hosted the largest number of internally displaced people – 6.9 million of its own citizens have been forced to flee their homes, followed by Syria (6.6 million) and Iraq (4.4 million). Conflict-riven Yemen was the country with the most new internally displaced people in 2015 with 2.5 million people accounting for nine per cent of the country’s population driven from their homes.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, in a message to mark World Refugee Day, described the day as a “moment for taking stock of the devastating impact of war and persecution on those forced to flee, and honouring their courage and resilience” as well as a moment to pay tribute to the communities and countries that host and receive people forced to leave their homes.
Mr Ban described the thousands who died trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea as a “tragic testimony to our collective failure to properly address their plight”.
“Meanwhile, divisive political rhetoric on asylum and migration issues, rising xenaphobia, and restrictions on access to asylum have become increasingly visible in certain regions, and the spirit of shared responsibility has been replaced by a hate-filled narrative of intolerance,” he said. “We see a worrisome increase in the use of detention and in the construction of fences and other barriers.”
Mr Ban said that it was sometimes hard to hear voices of welcome with the “anti-refugee rhetoric so loud” but said that there was an “urgent need” to build upon the positive examples of ordinary people, communities and states that have welcomed new arrivals.
His comments were echoed by UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, who said that “instead of burden sharing, we see borders closing, instead of political will, there is political paralysis”.
Mr Grandi said that while the growing number of people being displaced from their homes because of conflict and persecution was worrying, so too were the factors endangering refugees as they fled.
“At sea, a frightening number of refugees and migrants are dying each year; on land, people fleeing war are finding their way blocked by closed borders. Closing borders does not solve the problem.”
Mr Grandi said world leaders “can no longer watch passively as so many lives are needlessly lost”. “We must be smart about finding solutions to help refugees. We must find humane and dignified means to ensure refugees don’t risk their lives and those of their families by resorting to ruthless traffickers or by boarding flimsy boats in a bid to reach safety.”
Other findings in the report show that only 201,400 refugees returned to their countries of origin in 2015 – including 61,400 to Afghanistan, 39,500 to Sudan and 32,300 to Somalia.
Meanwhile a record two million applications for asylum were made with Germany receiving 441,900 of them followed by the US (172,700), Sweden (156,400) and the Russian Federation (152,500). Unaccompanied or separated children lodged some 98,400 asylum applications – the highest number on record.
