UN says record 65 million people displaced in 2015
Highest figures since the end of World War II driven by continued conflicts, mainly in the Middle East, Africa
The UN refugee agency said persecution and conflict in places like Syria and Afghanistan raised the total number of refugees and internally displaced people worldwide to a record 65.3 million at the end of last year.
The previous year, 2014, had also seen the highest number of refugees worldwide since World War II, with 60 million displaced people. But last year — when Europe staggered under the arrival of large numbers of migrants — topped that record by nearly 10 percent, the UNHCR said Monday in unveiling its annual Global Trends Report.
The Geneva-based agency urged leaders from Europe and elsewhere to do more to end the wars that are fanning the exodus of people from their homelands.
“I hope that the message carried by those forcibly displaced reaches the leaderships: We need action, political action, to stop conflicts,” Filippo Grandi, the UN high commissioner for Refugees, said of the figures, which released for World Refugee Day. “The message that they have carried is: ‘If you don’t solve problems, problems will come to you.'”
With stark detail, UNHCR said that on average, 24 people had been displaced every minute of every day last year — or 34,000 people a day — up from six every minute in 2005. Global displacement has roughly doubled since 1997, and risen by 50 percent since 2011 alone — when the Syria war began.
More than half of all refugees came from three countries: Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia.
There are an estimated 4.9 million refugees from Syria, 2.7 million from Afghanistan and 1.1. million from Somalia.
Turkey was the “top host” country for the second year running, taking in 2.5 million people — nearly all from neighboring Syria. Afghan neighbor Pakistan had 1.6 million, while Lebanon, next to Syria, hosted 1.1 million.
Germany received the highest number of asylum requests (441,900) over the 12-month span, demonstrating the country’s “readiness to receive people who were fleeing to Europe via the Mediterranean.”
Grandi said policymakers and advocacy groups face daunting challenges helping the largest subset of displaced people: Some 40.8 million internally displaced in countries in conflict. Another 21.3 million were refugees and some 3.2 million more were seeking asylum.
More than a million people fled to Europe last year, causing a political crisis in the EU.
Grandi called on countries to work to fight the xenophobia that has accompanied the rise in refugee populations, and decried both physical barriers — like fences erected by some European countries — and legislative hurdles that limit access to richer, more peaceful EU states.
Such European policies were “spreading a negative example around the world,” he said.
“There is no plan B for Europe in the long run,” Grandi said. “Europe will continue to receive people seeking asylum. Their numbers may vary … but it is inevitable.”
Counting Earth’s population at 7.349 billion, the UN said that one out of every 113 people on the planet was now either internally displaced or a refugee.
They now number more than the populations of Britain or France, the agency said, adding that it is “a level of risk for which UNHCR knows no precedent.”
Displacement figures have been rising since the mid 1990s, but the rate of increase has jumped since the outbreak of Syria’s civil war in 2011.
Of the planet’s 65.3 million displaced, 40.8 million remain within their own country, while 21.3 million have fled across borders and are now refugees.
Rising conflict, shrinking solutions
A worrying mixture of worrying factors have led to rising displacement and narrowing space for refugee resettlement.
“Situations that cause large refugee outflows are lasting longer,” the agency said, including more than 30 years of unrest in both Somalia and Afghanistan.
New and intense conflicts as well as dormant crises that have been “reignited” are further fueling the crisis, UNHCR said, pointing to South Sudan, Yemen, Burundi and the Central African Republic, aside from Syria.
Beyond the refugee hotspots in the Middle East and Africa, UNHCR said there were also worrying signs in Central America, where growing numbers of people fleeing gang violence led to a 17% rise in those leaving their homes through 2015.
Faced with a growing need to resettle those facing persecution, the answers are not always obvious.
“The rate at which solutions are being found for refugees and internally displaced people has been on a falling trend since the end of the Cold War,” the UN agency said.
Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council and a senior UN diplomat, said refugees “are the victims of a general paralysis” among nations who are not meeting their responsibilities to the world’s neediest.
