Al Jazeera News :
Nearly 80 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide by the end of last year as a result of conflict, violence, persecution and human rights violations, according to the United Nations.
Ahead of World Refugee Day on June 20, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, released its annual report on displacement on Thursday, which showed an estimated 11 million more people fled their homes in 2019, almost doubling the total figure over the past decade.
Among the overall 79.5 million displaced people globally, 29.6 million were refugees, 4.2 million asylum seekers and 45.7 million internally displaced people (IDPs) – those who fled to other parts of their own country, the report said.
“Forced displacement is vastly more widespread and common today. The world’s biggest conflicts are driving this and they must be brought to an end,” Selin Unal, UNHCR Turkey spokesperson, told Al Jazeera.
The UNHCR said the annual increase was a result of a “worrying new displacement” in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Sahel region, war-torn Yemen and Syria – which alone accounted for a sixth of the world’s displaced.
It also attributed the rise to the first-time inclusion in its annual report of Venezuelans who had fled amid a deteriorating economic crisis to other parts of Latin America and the Caribbean.
People from Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, South Sudan and Myanmar made up more than two-thirds of the refugee population.
Turkey hosted the largest number of refugees, 3.9 million people, mostly from Syria where a civil war has entered its tenth year.
Mariela Shaker, who left her hometown Aleppo in 2013, dodging bombs and mortars, and sought asylum in the United States, said being a refugee was not a choice, but could be anyone’s fate.
“It is one of the worst feelings to be forced to leave your country, your memories and everything behind. You end up going to a new place that you know nothing about and start all over from scratch,” the 29-year-old musician and UNHCR supporter told Al Jazeera.
Taban Shoresh, who narrowly survived an ethnic massacre as a child in Iraq during then-President Saddam Hussein’s rule, said her past trauma shaped her life in the United Kingdom.
Nearly 80 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide by the end of last year as a result of conflict, violence, persecution and human rights violations, according to the United Nations.
Ahead of World Refugee Day on June 20, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, released its annual report on displacement on Thursday, which showed an estimated 11 million more people fled their homes in 2019, almost doubling the total figure over the past decade.
Among the overall 79.5 million displaced people globally, 29.6 million were refugees, 4.2 million asylum seekers and 45.7 million internally displaced people (IDPs) – those who fled to other parts of their own country, the report said.
“Forced displacement is vastly more widespread and common today. The world’s biggest conflicts are driving this and they must be brought to an end,” Selin Unal, UNHCR Turkey spokesperson, told Al Jazeera.
The UNHCR said the annual increase was a result of a “worrying new displacement” in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Sahel region, war-torn Yemen and Syria – which alone accounted for a sixth of the world’s displaced.
It also attributed the rise to the first-time inclusion in its annual report of Venezuelans who had fled amid a deteriorating economic crisis to other parts of Latin America and the Caribbean.
People from Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, South Sudan and Myanmar made up more than two-thirds of the refugee population.
Turkey hosted the largest number of refugees, 3.9 million people, mostly from Syria where a civil war has entered its tenth year.
Mariela Shaker, who left her hometown Aleppo in 2013, dodging bombs and mortars, and sought asylum in the United States, said being a refugee was not a choice, but could be anyone’s fate.
“It is one of the worst feelings to be forced to leave your country, your memories and everything behind. You end up going to a new place that you know nothing about and start all over from scratch,” the 29-year-old musician and UNHCR supporter told Al Jazeera.
Taban Shoresh, who narrowly survived an ethnic massacre as a child in Iraq during then-President Saddam Hussein’s rule, said her past trauma shaped her life in the United Kingdom.
