More people around the world are fleeing war, conflict, violence and persecution than ever before.
According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), some 120 million people are fleeing violence, oppression and war. This is almost ten percent more than a year ago, or around one and a half per cent of the world's population.
This means that the number of refugees has reached an all-time high, the UN's High Commissioner for Refugees said in Geneva. In its annual report on "Global Trends", UNHCR emphasized that the number of refugees has risen for the twelfth consecutive year, as the international V4NA news agency highlights.
Behind these striking and growing numbers lie countless human tragedies,
– UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi was quoted by the German Tagesschau news site as saying.
At the end of last year, UNHCR registered 31.6 million refugees under its mandate. These are people who have been forced to flee their countries of origin to escape war or persecution. UNHCR estimates that by the end of 2023, nearly 70 million people will be internally displaced. The UNHCR also includes Palestinian refugees, asylum seekers, stateless persons and other groups in its Global Trends report, which continues to identify Syria as the world's largest refugee crisis.
According to the UNHCR, a total of 13.8 million Syrians are internally and externally displaced.
A key factor in the escalation of global displacement is the devastating conflict in Sudan, which began in April 2023. A total of 10.8 million Sudanese were displaced at the end of last year.
UNHCR estimates that the number of internally displaced people in Ukraine had fallen to 3.7 million by the end of 2023. But the number of refugees and asylum seekers in Ukraine rose by 275,500 to six million by the end of last year. It is estimated that by the end of last year, one-sixth of Ukraine's pre-war population had fled abroad, with the UNHCR citing the Middle East as another hotspot. In the Gaza Strip, up to 1.7 million people, or three quarters of the population, are fleeing violence. In the Democratic Republic of Congo and Myanmar, millions have also lost their homes in the past year to fighting and violence.
Cove rphoto: Fleeing the Ukraine war, Transcarpathia refugees arrive at the Ukraine-Hungary border (Photo: Arpad Kurucz)
