Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News – 20-06-2018
The United Nations Refugee Agency says a record 68.5 million people have been forced flee their homes due to war, violence and persecution, notably in places like Myanmar and Syria.
According to a report by the UN refugee agency, by the end of 2017, the number was nearly three million higher than the previous year and showed a 50 per cent increase from the 42.7 million uprooted from their homes a decade ago.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi says the current figure is equivalent to the entire population of Thailand, and the number of people forcibly displaced equates to one in every 110 persons worldwide.
“We are at a watershed, where success in managing forced displacement globally requires a new and far more comprehensive approach so that countries and communities aren’t left dealing with this alone.”
He told reporters around 70 per cent of that number are people from just 10 countries calling for more political will to halt the crises driving so many from their homes.
“If there were solutions to conflicts in those 10 countries, or in some of them at least, that huge figure, instead of rising every year, could start going down.”
The report also showed that 16.2 million people were freshly displaced last year, and included those forced to flee for the first time as well as those who had been previously displaced.
This equates to some 44,500 people being pushed out of their homes every day – or one person every two seconds.
0 Comments