Record-high numbers of displaced worldwide

UNHCR report for 2015

Global forced displacement has increased in 2015, with record-high numbers. By the end of the year, 65.3 million individuals were forcibly displaced worldwide as a result of persecution, conflict, generalized violence, or human rights violations. This is 5.8 million more than the previous year (59.5 million).

An estimated 12.4 million people were newly displaced due to conflict or persecution in 2015. This included 8.6 million individuals displaced within the borders of their own country and 1.8 million newly displaced refugees. The others were new applicants for asylum.

Developing regions hosted 86 percent of the world’s refugees under UNHCR’s mandate. At 13.9 million people, this was the highest figure in more than two decades. The Least Developed Countries provided asylum to 4.2 million refugees or about 26 per cent of the global total.

UNHCR estimates that at least 10 million people globally were stateless at the end of 2015. However, data recorded by governments and communicated to UNHCR were limited to 3.7 million stateless individuals in 78 countries.

On average 24 people worldwide were displaced from their homes every minute of every day during 2015 – some 34,000 people per day. This compares to 30 per minute in 2014 and 6 per minute in 2005.

Lebanon hosted the largest number of refugees in relation to its national population, with 183 refugees per 1,000 inhabitants. Jordan (87) and Nauru (50) ranked second and third, respectively.

More than half (54%) of all refugees worldwide came from just three countries: the Syrian Arab Republic (4.9 million), Afghanistan (2.7 million), and Somalia (1.1 million).

By end-2015, about 3.2 million people were waiting for a decision on their application for asylum.

During 2015, only 201,400 refugees returned to their countries of origin. Most returned to Afghanistan (61,400), Sudan (39,500), Somalia (32,300), or the Central African Republic (21,600).
Asylum-seekers submitted a record high number of new applications for asylum or refugee status – estimated at 2.0 million. With 441,900 asylum claims, Germany was the world’s largest recipient of new individual applications, followed by the United States of America (172,700), Sweden (156,400), and the Russian Federation (152,500).

In 2015, UNHCR submitted 134,000 refugees to States for resettlement. According to government statistics, States admitted 107,100 refugees for resettlement during the year, with or without UNHCR’s assistance. The United States of America accepted the highest number (66,500).

Children below 18 years of age constituted about half of the refugee population in 2015, up from 41 per cent in 2009 and the same as in 2014.

Unaccompanied or separated children in 78 countries – mainly Afghans, Eritreans, Syrians, and Somalis – lodged some 98,400 asylum applications in 2015. This was the highest number on record since UNHCR started collecting such data in 2006.

Full report:

http://www.unhcr.org/576408cd7

Comments

Capitalism & Genocide - Yanis Varoufakis Speech at the Gaza Tribunal, 23rd October 2025, Istanbul

Yanis Varoufakis On 23rd October, Yanis Varoufakis testified in front of the Jury of Conscience in the context of the Gaza Tribunal. His speech focused on the economic forces underpinning the genocide of the Palestinian people. In particular, he spoke on the manner in which capitalist dynamics have historically fuelled the white settler colonial project and, more recently, how the accumulation of a new form of capital - which he calls cloud capital - has accelerated, deepened and amplified the economic forces powering and propelling the machinery of genocide.

Gaza 2 Years On: Yanis Varoufakis & Katie Halper on the Flotilla, Israel's PR Machine & What’s Next

DiEM25 Two years since October 7, Katie Halper (‪@TheKatieHalperShow‬) and Yanis Varoufakis join host Mehran Khalili to break down Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the latest on the flotilla, Israel’s influencer PR push, and the “peace plan”.

The Rise of the Thielverse & the Surveillance State

The Chris Hedges YouTube Channel Whitney Webb traces the Thielverse’s rise and the construction of the bipartisan modern surveillance state that Trump and his benefactors are deploying against dissidents and immigrants today.

Freedom Flotilla Coalition & Thousand Madleens to Gaza sailing to break the siege

Freedom Flotilla Coalition The next wave is already being prepared, help us buy the boats and get them ready to sail!

World leaders rebel against US & Israel: to save Gaza, they demand international intervention

Geopolitical Economy Report Leaders from dozens of countries condemned the USA and Israel in their speeches at the UN General Assembly, demanding international intervention to save Gaza. Diplomats staged a mass walkout to protest Netanyahu's speech. Ben Norton shows how Latin American governments are standing in solidarity with Palestine.

A response to misinformation on Nicaragua: it was a coup, not a ‘massacre’

There is so much misinformation in mainstream corporate media about recent events in Nicaragua that it is a pity that Mary Ellsberg’s article for Pulse has added to it with a seemingly leftish critique. Ellsberg claims that recent articles, including from this website, often “ paint a picture of the crisis in Nicaragua that is dangerously misleading. ” Unfortunately, her own article does just that. It looks at the situation entirely from the perspective of those opposing Daniel Ortega’s government while whitewashing their malevolent behavior and downplaying the levels of US support they have relied on. Her piece is an incomplete depiction of what is happening on the ground, ignoring many salient facts that have come to light and which have been outdated by recent events. The following is a brief response to Ellsberg’s main points from someone who lives in Nicaragua and has observed the situation directly and intimately: https://grayzoneproject.com/2018/08/15/a-res...

Προβλέψεις ...

GR elections Update (15/9): Αναθεωρημένες προβλέψεις (μετά το δεύτερο debate): ΣΥΡΙΖΑ 28-30% ΛΑΕ + ΣΧΕΔΙΟ Β' κ.λ.π. 20-23% ΝΔ 11-13% ΧΑ 6-8% ΚΚΕ 5-5,5% ΕΝΩΣΗ ΚΕΝΤΡΩΩΝ 2,5-3% ΠΟΤΑΜΙ 2,5-3,5% ΠΑΣΟΚ + ΔΗΜΑΡ 3-4% ΑΝΕΛ 2,5-3,5% Update (11/9): Αναθεωρημένες προβλέψεις (μετά το πρώτο debate): ΣΥΡΙΖΑ 25-28% ΛΑΕ + ΣΧΕΔΙΟ Β' κ.λ.π. 20-23% ΝΔ 11-13% ΧΑ 6-8% ΚΚΕ 5-5,5% ΕΝΩΣΗ ΚΕΝΤΡΩΩΝ 3,5-4% ΠΟΤΑΜΙ 2,5-3,5% ΠΑΣΟΚ + ΔΗΜΑΡ 3-4% ΑΝΕΛ 2,5-3,5% Update (04/9): Αναθεωρημένες προβλέψεις: ΣΥΡΙΖΑ 23-25% ΛΑΕ + ΣΧΕΔΙΟ Β' κ.λ.π. 20-23% ΝΔ 12-15% ΧΑ 6-8% ΚΚΕ 5-5,5% ΕΝΩΣΗ ΚΕΝΤΡΩΩΝ 3,5-4% ΠΟΤΑΜΙ 2,5-3,5% ΠΑΣΟΚ 3-4% ΑΝΕΛ 2,5-3,5% Update (29/8): Αναθεωρημένες προβλέψεις: ΣΥΡΙΖΑ 23-25% ΛΑΕ + ΣΧΕΔΙΟ Β' κ.λ.π. 20-23% ΝΔ 12-15% ΧΑ 6-8% ΚΚΕ 5-5,5% ΕΝΩΣΗ ΚΕΝΤΡΩΩΝ 4-4,5% ΠΟΤΑΜΙ 4-4,5% ΠΑΣΟΚ 3-4% ΑΝΕΛ 2,5-3,5% Update : Αναθεωρημένες προβλέψεις: ΣΥΡΙΖΑ 26-27% ...

Will Mamdani manage to liberate New York from brutal neoliberalism?

globinfo freexchange Fifty years ago, New York City was on the verge of collapse . The politicians who run the city had borrowed more and more money from the banks to pay for its growing services and welfare. But in the early 70s, the middle classes fled from the city and the taxes they paid disappeared with them. So, the banks lent the city even more. But then, they began to worry about the size of the growing debt and whether the city would ever be able to pay it back. And then, one day in 1975, the banks just stopped. The city held its regular meeting to issue bonds in return for the loans, overseen by the city's financial controller. The banks were supposed to turn up at 11 a.m., but it soon became clear that none of them were going to appear. The meeting was rescheduled for 2 p.m. and the banks promised they would turn up. What happened that day in New York, marked a radical shift in power. The banks insisted that in order to protect their loans, they sho...

The REAL reason why Trump is attacking Latin America

Geopolitical Economy Report The Donald Trump administration seeks to forcibly impose the US empire's hegemony in Latin America, waging war on Venezuela, imposing sanctions on Colombia's President Gustavo Petro, hitting Brazil with tariffs, and meddling in Argentina's election. Ben Norton explains how Trump and Marco Rubio are trying to cut off all western hemisphere ties with China and Russia, bringing back the colonial Monroe Doctrine, now known as the Donroe Doctrine.

How Western media helped build and then protect the Israeli narrative that allowed a genocide to continue

globinfo freexchange For two years, Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in 4K on all of our screens. And for those same two years, many of the Western media institutions meant to hold power to account chose silence, distortion and doubt. Newsrooms repeated Israel's allegations with no pushback, ignored the evidence of genocide even as it played out live. This isn't a story about bias or mistakes. It's a story about how Western media helped build and then protect the Israeli narrative that allowed a genocide to continue. So, how many Palestinian lives have been lost because the world's news outlets chose to repeat Israel's narrative instead of questioning it? From the earliest days following October 7th, Israel's talking points were treated as fact. The now disproven claims of 40 beheaded babies and the story that Hamas used Palestinian civilians as human shields revived with every bombing of a hospital or school despite the mountain of evidence that it...

the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens

Search This Blog