Matthew 24:6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.
The number of people forced to flee their homes in 2015 likely “far surpassed” 60 million, a new record for global displacement, a new report from the United Nations Refugee Agency indicates.
The report, published Friday, projects that about 1 in every 122 people in the world have been forcibly displaced from their homes as a result of conflict or persecution. It’s based on data from the first half of the year, which indicated global surges in refugees, asylum-seekers and so-called internally displaced persons, or people who fled their homes but still live in their own countries.
According to the report, there were 20.2 million global refugees at end of June. It was a rise from last year’s total of 19.5 million, and the first time that number hit 20 million since 1992.
The U.N. report also documented a 78 percent increase in applications for asylum during the first half of 2015, from last year’s total of 558,000 to this year’s figure of 993,600. And the number of internally displaced people hit 34 million, an increase of about 2 million over 2014.
“Never has there been a greater need for tolerance, compassion and solidarity with people who have lost everything,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said in a statement.
The Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research, which analyzes global conflict, reported 46 highly violent conflicts in 2014, the most recent year for which data is available.
The U.N. report indicates Syria’s civil war remains the single largest driver behind displacement, with about 4.2 million people fleeing the war-torn nation and another 7.6 million forced out of their homes but still in the country as of mid-2015. But the report notes that even without Syria included in the totals, there still would have been a 5 percent global rise in refugees since 2011.
There was also a rise in new refugees this year — about 839,000 in six months, or 4,600 a day. About half came from Syria and the Ukraine, the site of another armed conflict. Globally, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Myanmar, Eritrea and Iraq were the 10 countries that produced the most refugees.
A large number of refugees flee to neighboring countries, the report indicated. Turkey hosts the most refugees — 1.84 million in all, 1.81 of them from Syria — followed by Pakistan with 1.5 million, “virtually all of them from Afghanistan.” Lebanon is third with 1.2 million — 99 percent of them from Syria — followed by Iran, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Uganda, Chad and Sudan.
The United Nations warned that countries hosting the refugees are facing growing pressure, which, if unmanaged, “can increase resentment and abet politicization of refugees.” The report also indicated refugees in this day and age are less likely to return home than at any other point in the past 30 years, according to a statistic the United Nations calls the voluntary return rate.
In terms of asylum, Germany was the runaway leader in new applications. It received 159,900 in the first six months of 2015, nearly equaling the 173,100 it received in 2014. The country is known for having extremely favorable, yet often criticized policies for those who seek to resettle there. Russia was next with about 100,000 — fueled by conflict in Ukraine, the report indicates.
The United States was third with 78,200. While that was an increase of 44 percent from last year, the report indicated that most people who sought asylum in the United States were from countries like El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras and China. Syria wasn’t mentioned.
Other countries in the top 10 for most new asylum applications were Hungary, Turkey, South Africa, Serbia, Italy, France and Austria.
The report indicated there were 6.5 million internally displaced people in Columbia, 4 million in Iraq and 2.3 million in Sudan. Pakistan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria and Ukraine also had more than 1.4 million internally displaced people. Yemen, the site of an ongoing civil war, and Afghanistan also saw surges in their figures, the report indicated.