Global refugee numbers have hit an historic high with the United Nations saying there were as as many as 11.4 million refugees worldwide and a further 26 million people displaced internally by conflict or persecution at the end of last year.
Key factors have included the ongoing conflict in Iraq where the number of internally displaced people rose from 1.8 to 2.4 million over the course of the year and the ongoing concerns about climate change.
Releasing the figures this week ahead of World Refugee Day (20th June), Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said that the world continued to face a series of complex challenges that could force even more displacement of people.
The former Portuguese prime minister said that as well as new “conflict-related emergencies”, these include “climate-induced environmental degradation” resulting in an increased competition for scarce resources and the “extreme price hikes” which are generating instability in some areas.
It is the second year in row in which refugee numbers have risen after five years of decline, a fact Mr Guterres said was of “concern”.
Contained in the 2007 Global Trends report, the figures show that the number of refugees under the care of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) rose from 9.9 to 11.4 million during 2007 while figures from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre show the number of people affected by conflict induced internal displacement rose from 24.4 million to 26 million.
Afghans – with around three million living mainly in Pakistan and Jordan – and Iraqis – with around two million living in Syria and Jordan – accounted for nearly half of all refugees under UNHCR’s care in 2007 with much of the increase in refugee numbers attributed to the volatile situation in Iraq.
Other refugees included 552,000 Colombians, 523,000 Sudanese and 457,000 Somalis while among those internally displaced were some three million people in Colombia, 2.4 million people in Iraq, 1.3 million in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1.2 million in Uganda and 1 million in Somalia.
A few days before releasing the report, Mr Gueterres visited the Dadaab refugee camp on the border between Somalia and Kenya.
One of the oldest and most congested refugee camps in the world, it was first created 16 years ago and still continues to take in refugees from the war in Somalia – as many as 20,000 people have entered this year alone.
Mr Guterres called on the international community to be “much more engaged in Somalia”.
“I came here to listen,” he told refugees in the camp. “I have learned that the Somali refugee community is saying in one voice: Stop the war in Somalia.”
Churches around the world will be joining together this Sunday to pray for refugees as part of an initiative being promoted by the Refugee Highway Partnership.
~ www.unhcr.org
~ http://refugeehighway.net
