UN report: One in every 304 is a refugee

World
Europe

03:01

Regional conflicts and widespread violence have caused people to flee their homes, many of whom have become refugees.

A total of 68.5 million people had been displaced worldwide by the end of 2017, meaning nearly one in every 110 were displaced, according to the Global Trends report released by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Tuesday.

Among the displaced, there are nearly 25.4 million refugees, over half of whom are younger than 18.

Of all the refugees, 5.4 million are from Palestine alone. They are the ones whose normal places of residence were Palestine during the period from June 1, 1946, to May 15, 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA).

The rest are from different countries or regions, totaling 19.9 million, which has increased by more than 10 percent since 2016.

The conflict in Syria witnessed the largest number of refugees from a single country in 2017 at nearly 6.3 million, more than twice the number from Afghanistan, which ranked second. The third goes to South Sudan, which still suffers after the breakdown in peace efforts in July 2016.

The outbreak of violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine State in August 2017 caused 655,500 Rohingya people to pour into Bangladesh, having Myanmar produce nearly 1.2 million refugees and rank fourth.

To escape the disasters, refugees chose to cross borders and settle down in other countries.

Despite the focus on refugees arriving in Europe and the US, it is the developing countries that hosted nearly 85 percent of refugees by the end of 2017.

Turkey, which borders Syria to the north, hosted the largest number of refugees, with 3.5 million registered there by end of 2017, most of them Syrians.

Among the European countries, Germany enters the top eight countries hosting the most refugees, as it took in 970,400 refugees by the end of 2017.

Turkey is certainly not the only destination for refugees, as some of them risked their lives sailing across the Mediterranean to other European countries.

Refugees have commonly taken three routes, through the eastern, western and central part of the Mediterranean Sea, to reach potential host countries.

Despite the numerous boat disasters, the Mediterranean, separating northern Africa and western Asia from western Europe and southern Europe, continues to see refugees brave its waters.

However, due to the EU-Turkey Statement of March 18 in 2016, which hit or nearly closed the eastern Mediterranean route from Turkey to Greece, the central Mediterranean has become the primary entry point to Europe with most departing from Libya.

The Global Trends issued by the UNHCR is an annual report on displaced peoples around the world.

(Liling Tan contributed to the story.)