Agency The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has revealed that a staggering total of 120 million people have been forcibly displaced by war, violence, and persecution and branded the situation a “terrible indictment on the state of the world”. The UN agency noted that forced displacement globally had once again smashed records, with conflicts in places like Gaza, Sudan, and Myanmar, forcing even more people to flee their homes. The global displaced population is now equivalent to that of Japan, the UNHCR pointed out in a statement.
“Conflict remains a very, very big driver of mass displacement,” the UN refugee chief, Filippo Grandi told reporters. At the end of last year, 117.3 million people were displaced, and by the end of April, the number had swelled further, with an estimated 120 million people around the world living in displacement, UNHCR said in a report.
The number is up from 110 million a year ago, and has been rising for 12 consecutive years — nearly tripling since 2012 amid a combination of new and mutating crises and a failure to resolve long-standing ones, UNHCR stated. Grandi told AFP that he had been shocked at the high displacement figure when he took the job eight years ago. Since then it has “more than doubled”, he said, describing this as “a terrible indictment on the state of the world”.
– Figures will keep rising – Grandi pointed to a palpable increase in crises and also highlighted how climate change is impacting popul.
