More than 100 million people worldwide have been displaced for the first time due to conflict, violence and human rights violations. This is reported by UNHCR, the refugee agency of the United Nations. In June 2021, that was still 84 million people.
More than 1 percent of global cloud cover will be forced to flee by 2022. “Hundred million is a stark figure. Sobering and alarming at the same time. It is a record that should never have been set,” said Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
The record number is the result of new waves of global or ongoing conflict in countries such as Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Myanmar and Nigeria, but especially the war in Ukraine. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, 8 million Ukrainians have fled within the country. Another 6 million people fled the country.
In a statement, Grandi praised the international response to people fleeing the war in Ukraine. He stresses that “similar mobilization” is needed for crises in other countries. “But in the end, humanitarian aid is only a mitigating agent,” Grandi warns.
The total number of people displaced in 2022 includes refugees, asylum seekers, and 53.2 million people displaced by conflict within their own countries.
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