UN: Nearly 80 Million People Displaced Worldwide Due to Violence, Oppression

ARK News.. Almost 80 million people have been forced to flee their homes due to violence and persecution, marking a near-doubling of global displacement in a decade, the UN said Thursday.

"One percent of the world population cannot go back to their homes because there are wars, persecution, human rights violations, and other forms of violence," UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi told AFP in an interview.

By the end of 2019, one out of every 97 people in the world was living uprooted and displaced, according to a new report by the United Nations refugee agency, highlighting swelling displacement from conflicts in places like Syria and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The UNHCR agency found that by the end of last year, a record 79.5 million people were living either as refugees, asylum seekers or in so-called internal displacement within their own countries, marking a dramatic increase of nearly nine million from a year earlier.

"This is a trend that has been going on since 2012: the figures are higher than the year before," Grandi said, pointing out that this meant "there has been more conflict, there has been more violence that has pushed people away from their homes."

This means "there have been insufficient political solutions" to the conflicts and crises that would allow people to return home, he explained.

Grandi pointed out that 10 years ago, the number of people living in displacement around the global stood at around 40 million.

"So it has basically doubled. And we don't see this trend diminishing," he stressed.

"With the international community so divided, so unable, so incapable of making peace, unfortunately the situation won't stop growing, and I am very worried that next year it will be even worse than this year."

Last year, some 11 million people were newly displaced, many in a handful of conflict-wracked countries and regions, the report showed.

They include Syria, which after more than nine years of civil war counts 13.2 million people displaced either inside or outside the country -- a full sixth of the global total.

In fact, Grandi pointed out, a full 68 percent of the world's refugees come from just five countries: Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, South Sudan and Myanmar.

This, he stressed, "means that if the international community found the unity, the political will and the resources to help these countries get out of crisis and rebuild, most likely we would have solved well over half of the world (refugee) problem."

Source: Asharq Al-Awsat

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