1 percent of humanity displaced: UNHCR Global Trends report

GENEVA. KAZINFORM UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, appealed to countries worldwide to do far more to find homes for millions of refugees and others displaced by conflict, persecution or events seriously disturbing public order, according to a report released today that showed forced displacement is now affecting more than one percent of humanity – 1 in every 97 people – and with fewer and fewer of those who flee being able to return home.

UNHCR’s annual Global Trends report, which comes one day ahead of 20 June World Refugee Day, shows that an unprecedented 79.5 million were displaced as of the end of 2019, WAM reports.

The report also notes diminishing prospects for refugees when it comes to hopes of any quick end to their plight. In the 1990s, on average 1.5 million refugees were able to return home each year. Over the past decade that number has fallen to around 385,000, meaning that growth in displacement is today far outstripping solutions.

«We are witnessing a changed reality in that forced displacement nowadays is not only vastly more widespread but is simply no longer a short-term and temporary phenomenon,» said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi. «People cannot be expected to live in a state of upheaval for years on end, without a chance of going home, nor a hope of building a future where they are. We need a fundamentally new and more accepting attitude towards all who flee, coupled with a much more determined drive to unlock conflicts that go on for years and that are at the root of such immense suffering.»

UNHCR’s Global Trends report shows that of the 79.5 million who were displaced at the end of last year, 45.7 million were people who had fled to other areas of their own countries. The rest were people displaced elsewhere, 4.2 million of them being people awaiting the outcome of asylum requests, while 29.6 million were refugees and others forcibly displaced outside their country.

Global Trends report indicates that 100 million people at least were forced to flee their homes in the past decade, seeking refugee either in or outside their countries.

It notes that 80 percent of the world’s displaced people are in countries or territories affected by acute food insecurity and malnutrition – many of them countries facing climate and other disaster risk and more than eight of every 10 refugees (85 percent) are in developing countries, generally a country neighbouring the one they fled.

Global Trends Report counts all major displaced and refugee populations, including the 5.6 million Palestine refugees who fall under the care of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine.

The 2030 Sustainable Development commitment of «leaving no one behind» now explicitly includes refugees, thanks to a new indicator on refugees approved by the UN Statistical Commission in March this year.