Refugees: the number of displaced by wars and crises has doubled in 10 years
Distribution of food aid in the IDLib IDP camp in Syria.
REUTERS - KHALIL ASHAWI
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
Never has there been so many refugees and displaced people in the world.
This sentence has been pronounced every year for almost 10 years.
Since the number of people forced to leave their homes has increased inexorably.
They are now more than 82 million according to the UNHCR.
The paradox is that the pandemic has not reversed the trend.
Publicity
Read more
With our correspondent in Geneva,
Jérémie Lanche
More than 3 million uprooted in 2020 as the UNHCR calls them.
This is 4% more than in 2019. 2/3 come from only 5 countries: Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, South Sudan and Burma.
Concretely, this means that a tenth of humanity is today refugees or displaced in their own country.
This is twice as many as 10 years ago.
The Covid-19 pandemic has worsened the situation of many candidates for exile. As a result of border closures, UNHCR estimates that 1.5 million people have been prevented from applying for asylum. Probably swelling a little more the number of internally displaced people. Almost twice as numerous as refugees. The Covid-19 has also plunged the number of voluntary returns of people to their countries or their resettlement in third countries by the UNHCR. Another fact, recalled by the United Nations agency: 9 refugees out of 10 are welcomed in a country neighboring their own. Very often low and middle income countries.
The number of people forced to flee their homes due to conflict, war and human rights violations reached an all-time high of 82.4 million by the end of 2020. https://t.co/fOz1Bdo1D5 via @Le_HCR
- The UNHCR (@Le_HCR) June 18, 2021
Newsletter
Receive all international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
Refugees
UN
Coronavirus