Displaced people seeking asylum
By AsiaNews
June 18 2020
This is the highest number in the last 10 years, equal to one percent of the world population. A double value compared to 2010, when the total was 41 million. Wars, persecutions, famines, diseases and human rights violations encourage escape. Filippo Grandi: “Figures increase steadily”.
BEIRUT (AsiaNews / Agencies) – Around 80 million people in the world today have been forced to flee their homes and lands because of violence and persecution, or have had to seek asylum within their country. This is the highest number in the past 10 years.
This is what emerges from UNHCR’s Global Trends 2020, the United Nations agency that deals with refugees and that shows a radical change in the forced movements of people. 1% of humanity (79.5 million), confirms the UN body, lives in conditions of displacement; a double number compared to 2010, when the overall figure was 41 million, just over half.
The dramatic data on the number of internally displaced people does not take into account the crisis situation triggered this year by the new coronavirus pandemic and which, in the near future, could cause further internal and foreign exodus. According to the report, at the end of 2019 one in 97 people in the world live in conditions of uprooting and displacement.
Wars, persecutions, famines, diseases and human rights violations are elements that favor escape attempts. Among the many we remember the almost 10 years of Syrian conflict, the persecutions against minorities in South Sudan and Myanmar, the people who try to escape from Maduro’s Venezuela. And again, the upheavals triggered by climate change in the Sahel, the war in Yemen and the epidemics related to it, the conflicts in Libya and Afghanistan.
More than two thirds of people fleeing the world, approximately 68%, come from only five countries: Syria (6.6 million), Venezuela (3.7 million), Afghanistan (2.7 million) South Sudan (2.2 million) and Myanmar (1.1 million). The reception is guaranteed in most cases by developing nations, which welcome up to 85% of the refugees in the world.
At the forefront of Turkey, which has 3.6 million of them on its territory, mainly from Syria. Colombia followed (1.8 million refugees), where the majority of the displaced people from Venezuela poured, then Germany (1.5 million) and Pakistan (1.4 million).
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi stresses that “one percent of the world’s population cannot return to their homes due to ongoing conflicts, persecutions, abuse and other forms of violence”. We are facing a trend “in place since 2012” in which “the figures are steadily increasing compared to the previous year”. Furthermore, “forced” movements are “more widespread” and “are no longer a temporary and short-lived phenomenon”.
The United Nations expert recalls that only 10 years ago the number of internally displaced people was around 40 million “, so the number” has doubled “and no prospects are visible that show a turnaround.
Since last year, 11 million more refugees have been registered, especially in war zones such as Syria where at the moment there are 13.2 refugees and internally displaced persons, equal to about a sixth of the total.
