GENEVA: More than one percent of the world's population - a record 80 million people - have now been forced to flee their homes due to violence and persecution, the UN said Thursday.
By the end of 2019, one out of every 97 people in the world was living uprooted and displaced, according to a fresh report by the United Nations refugee agency, highlighting swelling displacement from conflicts in places like Syria and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
"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.
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."
It also means, he said, "that there have been insufficient political solutions" to the conflicts and crises that would allow people to return home.
Grandi noted that 10 years ago, the number of people living in displacement around the globe stood at around 40 million.
"So it has basically doubled. And we don't see this trend diminishing," he said.
"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."
Thursday's report showed that at the end of 2019, nearly 46 million of those displaced remained inside their own country, while 26 million had fled across borders as refugees.-AFP
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