Trail of despair: 60m people flee their homes to escape war and persecution

The number of people forced to flee their homes is likely to have far surpassed a record 60 million this year, the United Nations said on Friday. The figure includes 20.2 million refugees fleeing wars and persecution, the most since 1992, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees reported. Nearly 2.5 million asylum seekers have requests pending, with Germany, Russia and the U.S. receiving the highest numbers of the nearly 1 million new claims lodged in the first half of the year, it added.

2015 is on track to see worldwide forced displacement exceeding 60 million for the first time - 1 in every 122 humans is today someone who has been forced to flee their homes

UNHCR report

Syria’s civil war, which began in 2011 has been the main driver of mass displacement, with more than 4.2 million people having fled abroad and 7.6 million uprooted within their shattered homeland. Together, people from Syria and Ukraine, where a separatist rebellion in the east erupted in April 2014, accounted for half of the 839,000 people who became refugees in the first half of 2015, the UNCHR said. Developing countries bordering conflict zones still hosted the lion’s share of the refugees, said the report as it warned against growing resentment and “politicization of refugees”. Antonio Guterres, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said in a statement: “Never has there been a greater need for tolerance, compassion and solidarity with people who have lost everything.”

In effect, if you become a refugee today your chances of going home are lower than at any time in more than 30 years.

UNHCR report

World refugees