The issue of what to do about the world’s 65.3m displaced people takes centre stage at the United Nations General Assembly on Monday when leaders from around the globe converge on New York for the first-ever summit on Addressing Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants.
With more people forced to flee their homes than at any time since World War II, leaders and diplomats are expected to approve a document aimed at unifying the UN’s 193 member states behind a more coordinated approach that protects the human rights of refugees and migrants.
Conflicts and persecution have driven a record 65.3m people from their homes. Here are some facts:
⇐ One in every 113 people globally is either an asylum-seeker, internally displaced or a refugee.
⇐ An average of 24 people worldwide were forced to flee every minute last year.
⇐ At the end of 2015 there were 65.3m forcibly displaced people. They included 21.3m refugees, 40.8m internally displaced and 3.2m asylum seekers.
⇐ If they were a country they would be the world’s 21st largest.
⇐ More than half of refugees come from just three countries: Syria (4.9m), Afghanistan (2.7m) and Somalia (1.1m).
⇐ Colombia has the highest number of internally displaced people (6.9m) followed by Syria (6.6m) and Iraq (4.4m).
⇐ Developing regions host 86% of refugees. Turkey has by far the largest number at 2.5m.
⇐ Lebanon has the highest concentration relative to its own population with nearly one refugee for every five citizens.
⇐ Nearly one in 200 children in the world is a refugee. The number of child refugees has more than doubled in the last decade.
⇐ Growing numbers of children are crossing borders alone. Last year, more than 100,000 unaccompanied minors applied for asylum in 78 countries - triple the number in 2014.
Sources: Reuters, AP
