Record Number Of People Displaced In 2015

The number of people displaced by conflict around the world is at the highest level ever recorded, the United Nations refugee agency says.

The U.N.’s refugee agency reports that the number of displaced people is at its highest ever – surpassing even post-World War II numbers, when the world was struggling to come to terms with the most devastating event in history.

Yesterday, to coincide with World Refugee Day, the UNHCR released a report revealing the vast and awful extent of the global refugee crisis. Globally, close to one percent of humanity has been forced to flee.

“The rate at which solutions are being found for refugees and internally displaced people has been falling since the end of the Cold War, leaving a growing number in limbo”, UNHCR says. As conflict and persecution force growing numbers of people to flee, anti-migrant political sentiment has strained the will to resettle refugees, said UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi.

Our unemployment figures have leaped up by 2.2% from the last quarter of 2015 to the first of 2016, bringing total unemployment to 26.7% or just over five million people.

These three countries together accounted for more than half the refugees under UNHCR’s mandate worldwide, said the report.

Mr Grandi said. “The rise of xenophobia is unfortunately becoming a very defining feature of the environment in which we work”.

Barriers are rising everywhere – and I am not just talking of walls.

Mr Grandi added: “The fact that that flow has stopped does not mean the problem of displacement has ended”.

The UNHCR report broke down the numbers between those who are seeking asylum: 3.2 million; internally displaced persons: 40.8 million; and refugees: 21.3 million.

“The refugees we welcome to the United States will join previous generations who have come to this country to escape violence and persecution – threats to human life and dignity that remain all too real today”, Kerry said.

He pointed out that the huge influx of displaced people was not going to stop anytime soon, adding that “there is no Plan B for Europe in the long run, Europe will continue to receive people seeking asylum”. The report includes a note to the wealthier nations of that world that ‘by the end of 2015, countries in developing regions hosted 13.9 million of the world’s total refugee population, compared with the 2.2 million hosted by countries in developed regions.