‘1 person is displaced every 3 seconds’
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DEVASTATING conflicts, violence and persecution in places like Syria and South Sudan had left a record 65.6 million people uprooted from their homes by the end of 2016, the United Nations said yesterday.
That number marks a jump of just 300,000 from the end of 2015, but is more than 6 million higher than at the end of 2014, according to a fresh report published by the UN refugee agency.
This is “the highest figure since we started recording these figures,” UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi told reporters ahead of the report launch.
“By any measure, this is an unacceptable number, and it speaks louder than ever to the need for solidarity and common purpose in preventing and resolving crises,” he said.
The figures released ahead of World Refugee Day showed that a full 10.3 million of the world’s displaced people fled their homes last year alone, including 3.4 million who crossed international borders to become refugees.
“This equates to one person becoming displaced every three seconds — less than the time it takes to read this sentence,” UNHCR pointed out.
Most people who have been forced from their homes flee within their own country, and are defined as internally displaced people. At the end of 2016, there were 40.3 million internally displaced people in the world, down slightly from 40.8 million a year earlier, with Syria, Iraq and Colombia accounting for the greatest numbers.
A further 22.5 million people, half of them children, were registered as refugees last year, the UNHCR report showed — “the highest level ever recorded.”
Syria’s six-year conflict alone has sent more than 5.5 million people seeking safety in other countries, including 825,000 last year.
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