More than 100 million people are currently fleeing the world, more than at any time since World War II. In Geneva, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, spoke of a “dramatic milestone” reached as a result of the Russian war against Ukraine and the crises in Afghanistan and elsewhere. The dire trend will continue if the world community does not find a way to permanently resolve conflicts, warned UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi.
The expulsion from Ukraine is the biggest and quickest crisis of its kind since UNHCR was founded in 1951, the UNHCR said in its World Refugee Report on Thursday. Because of the devastating consequences of the war against Ukraine, UNHCR made an exception for the current number of refugees. The report otherwise refers to the past year.
At the end of December 2021, 89.3 million people were fleeing war, violence, persecution and human rights violations, eight percent more than the year before. The number has been increasing for many years, at the end of 2021 there were significantly more than twice as many people fleeing as ten years earlier. After Turkey, Colombia, Uganda and Pakistan, Germany was the largest host country with 1.3 million hosts.