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June 20: World Refugee Day

By the end of 2011:
    An estimated 43.3 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced due to conflict and persecution. 
     
    Among refugees and people in refugee-like situations, children constituted 46 per cent of the population.

    876,100 individual applications for asylum or refugee status were submitted in 171 countries or territories.

    The number of internally displaced persons, benefitting from UNHCR’s protection and assistance activities, was 15.5 million.

    UNHCR identified some 3.5 million stateless people in 64 countries. However, the actual number of stateless persons worldwide was estimated at up to 12 million.



The number of forcibly displaced people in the world continues to rise. There are now more than 45 million refugees and internally displaced people – the highest level in nearly 20 years. Last year alone, someone was forced to abandon their home every four seconds.

War remains the dominant cause, with the crisis in Syria a leading instance of major displacement. More than half of all refugees listed in a new report by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees come from just five war-affected countries: Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Syria and Sudan. Major new displacements have also been occurring in Mali and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Figures give only a glimpse of this enormous human tragedy. Every day, conflict tears apart the lives of thousands of families. They may be forced to leave loved ones behind or become separated in the chaos of war. Children suffer the most. Nearly half of all refugees are below age 18, and a growing number are fleeing on their own.

Forced displacement also has a significant economic, social and, at times, political impact on the communities that provide shelter. There is a growing and deep imbalance in the burden of hosting refugees, with poor countries taking in the vast majority of the world’s uprooted people. Developing countries host 81 per cent of the world’s refugees, compared to 70 per cent a decade ago.

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