More than 45,2 mill. refugees
A report released today by UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, says that more people are refugees or internally displaced than at any time since 1994, with the crisis in Syria having emerged as a major new factor in global displacement.
UNHCR’s annual Global Trends report, released during Refugee Week (17-24 June) shows that as of the end of 2012, more than 45.2 million people were in situations of displacement compared to 42.5 million at the end of 2011. This includes 15.4 million refugees, 937,000 asylum seekers, and 28.8 million people forced to flee within the borders of their own countries.
War remains the dominant cause. A full 55 per cent of all refugees listed in UNHCR’s report come from just five war-affected countries, namely Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Syria and Sudan. The report also charts major new displacement from Mali, in Democratic Republic of the Congo, and from Sudan into South Sudan and Ethiopia.
“These truly are alarming numbers. They reflect individual suffering on a huge scale and they reflect the difficulties of the international community in preventing conflicts and promoting timely solutions for them,” said António Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees and head of UNHCR. ….
http://unhcr.org/globaltrendsjune2013/UNHCR%20GLOBAL%20TRENDS%202012_V05.pdf