UN says number of displaced people and refugees increased to 114 million
Geneva, Oct 25 (EFE).- The number of people that have fled their homes due to wars, persecution, violence, and human rights violations around the world has increased to 114 million, 5.6 million more than at the beginning of the year, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said on Wednesday.
However, the UNHCR’s 2023 interim report reflected the numbers from only until September and did not include 1.4 million internally displaced people in Gaza from the recent hostilities between Israel and Hamas.
The refugee agency pointed out that the main drivers of forced displacement in the first half of 2023 were conflicts like the war in Ukraine and the crisis in Sudan.
The conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Myanmar, a combination of drought, floods, and insecurity in Somalia, and the prolonged humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan have also left thousands of people displaced.
“The international community’s inability to solve conflicts or prevent new ones is driving displacement and misery,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, said in a statement on the occasion of the report’s publication.
“As we watch events unfold in Gaza, Sudan and beyond, the prospect of peace and solutions for refugees and other displaced populations might feel distant. But we cannot give up. With our partners we will keep pushing for – and finding – solutions for refugees,” he added.
The report indicates that more than half of the displaced people are internal, and that three-fourth of all displaced people and refugees were in developing countries.
In the first six months of this year, UNHCR recalled that a record number of 1.6 million new asylum applications were registered in host countries.
Between January and June, 404,000 refugees and 2.7 million internally displaced people returned to their homes, double the number from the same period in 2022.
UNHCR, however, warned that in many cases, the conditions in the places of origin were not sufficient to ensure a safe return. EFE
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