Afghanistan Among Countries With Highest Number Of Refugees, IDPs: UN Report

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دوشنبه 31 جوزا 1395 ساعت 12:34 نوشته شده توسط TOLOnews.com

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The United Nations refugee agency says in an annual report that persecution and conflict in countries like Afghanistan and Syria has increased the number of refugees and inteally displaced persons (IDPs) worldwide to a record 65.3 million last year.

According to the UNHCR's Global Trends Report, Palestinians are the largest group of refugees at more than five million. Syria is next on the list, with 4.9 million refugees, followed by Afghanistan (2.7 million) and Somalia (1.1 million).

The agency said situations that cause large refugee outflows are lasting longer, including more than 30 years of unrest in both Afghanistan and Somalia.

As per the report, 2014 had already witnessed the highest number of refugees worldwide since World War II, with 60 million displaced people. But last year after arrival of large numbers of migrants to Europe surpassed that record by nearly 10 percent.

The UN refugee agency prodded world leaders to do more to end the wars that are fanning the exodus of people from their homelands.

"I hope that the message carried by those forcibly displaced reaches the leaderships: We need action, political action, to stop conflicts," said Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
He added: "The message that they have carried is: If you don't solve problems, problems will come to you."

Meanwhile, Maya Ameratunga, representative of the UNHCR country office in Kabul, said: "What we notice now is that there are so many refugee crises around the world, including newer crises like Syria and Iraq and other places around the world, that the attention of donors is really stretched. And what we see is that attention sometimes falls away (from Afghanistan)."

The UNHCR said in the report that on average, 24 people had been displaced every minute of every day last year — or 34,000 people a day — up from six every minute in 2005.

More than half of all refugees came from three countries: Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia, the report says.

Turkey was the "top host" country for the second year running, taking in 2.5 million people — nearly all from neighboring Syria. Afghan neighbor Pakistan had 1.6 million, while Lebanon, next to Syria, hosted 1.1 million.

According to the report, the number of people displaced globally raised by 5.8 million through 2015.

Counting Earth's population at 7.349 billion, the UN said that one out of every 113 people on the planet was now either inteally displaced or a refugee.

A worrying mixture of worrying factors has led to rising displacement and narrowing space for refugee resettlement.

New and intense conflicts as well as dormant crises that have been "reignited" are further fuelling the crisis, UNHCR said, pointing to South Sudan, Yemen, Burundi and the Central African Republic, aside from Syria.