21st June, 2014
Developing countries, including many in Africa, now host 86 per cent of the worlds refugees, up from 70 per cent 10 years ago.
A new report released by the United Nations refugee agency indicated on Friday.
Sub-Saharan Africa hosts one-quarter of all refugees in the world, according to the report by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
The UNHCR report shows that the number of refugees, asylum- seekers, and internally displaced people worldwide, has topped 50 million for the first time since World War II.
According to the UNHCR’s annual Global Trends report, 51.2 million people were forcibly displaced at the end of 2013, six million more than the 45.2 million reported in 2012.
The report is based on data compiled by governments, Non-governmental organisations, and from the organisation’s own records.
This massive increase was driven mainly by the war in Syria, which at the end of last year had forced 2.5 million people to leave the country and made 6.5 million to be internally displaced.
Major new displacement was also seen in Africa, according to the report.
“We are seeing the immense costs of not ending wars, of failing to resolve or prevent conflict,” the report said.
“Peace is today dangerously in deficit. Humanitarians can help as a palliative, but political solutions are vitally needed.
“Without this, the alarming levels of conflict and the mass suffering that is reflected in these figures will continue,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres.
The worldwide total of 51.2 million people forcibly displaced, represents a huge number of people in need of help.
This implies for both foreign aid budgets in the world’s donor nations and the absorption and hosting capacities of countries on the front lines of refugee crises.
“The international community has to overcome its differences and find solutions to the conflicts of today in South Sudan, Syria, Central African Republic and elsewhere,” Guterres said.
He noted that “Non-traditional donors need to step up alongside traditional donors.
“Many people are forcibly displaced today as the entire populations of medium-to-large countries such as Colombia or Spain, South Africa or South Korea.”