DUSHANBE, June 19, 2015, Asia-Plus -- UNHCR warns of dangerous new era in worldwide displacement as report shows almost 60 million people forced to flee their homes

A UNHCR report, released on June 18, shows that worldwide displacement from wars, conflict, and persecution is at the highest levels we have recorded, and accelerating fast.

UNHCR''s new annual Global Trends report shows a sharp escalation in the number of people forced to flee their homes, with 59.5 million people forcibly displaced at the end of 2014 compared to 51.2 million a year earlier and 37.5 million a decade ago.  The increase since 2013 was the highest ever seen in a single year.

The main acceleration has been since early 2011 when war erupted in Syria, propelling it into becoming the world''s single largest driver of displacement.  In 2014, an average of 42,500 people became refugees, asylum seekers, or internally displaced every day, representing a four-fold increase in just four years.  Worldwide, one in every 122 humans is now either a refugee, internally displaced, or seeking asylum.

UNHCR''s report shows that in region after region, the number of refugees and internally displaced people is on the rise.  In the past five years, at least 15 conflicts have erupted or reignited: Eight in Africa (Côte d''Ivoire, Central African Republic, Libya, Mali, northeastern Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan and this year in Burundi); three in the Middle East (Syria, Iraq, and Yemen); one in Europe (Ukraine) and three in Asia (Kyrgyzstan, and in several areas of Myanmar and Pakistan).  Few of these crises have been resolved and most still generate new displacement.  In 2014, just 126,800 refugees were able to return to their home countries, the lowest number in 31 years.

Meanwhile, decades-old instability and conflict in Afghanistan, Somalia and elsewhere means that millions of people from these places remain either on the move or – and increasingly commonly –stranded for years on the peripheries of society and amid the crippling uncertainty of being long-term internally displaced or refugees.  Among recent and highly visible consequences of the world''s conflicts and the terrible suffering they cause has been dramatic growth in numbers of refugees seeking safety by undertaking dangerous sea journeys, including on the Mediterranean, in the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea, and in Southeast Asia.

UNHCR''s Global Trends report shows that in 2014 alone 13.9 million became newly displaced – four times the number in 2010.  Worldwide there were 19.5 million refugees (up from 16.7 million in 2013), 38.2 million were displaced inside their own countries (up from 33.3 million in 2013), and 1.8 million people were awaiting the outcome of claims for asylum (against 1.2 million in 2013).  Alarmingly, over half the world''s refugees are children.

Syria is the world''s biggest producer of both internally displaced people (7.6 million) and refugees (3.88 million at the end of 2014).  Afghanistan (2.59 million) and Somalia (1.1 million) are the next biggest refugee source countries.

Even amid such sharp growth in numbers, the global distribution of refugees remains heavily skewed away from wealthier nations and towards the less wealthy.  Almost nine out of every 10 refugees (86 per cent) were in regions and countries considered economically less developed.  A full quarter of all refugees were in countries ranking among the UN''s list of Least Developed nations.