“Either the international community comes together to take action to address this human tragedy, resolve conflicts and find lasting solutions, or this terrible trend will continue,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said in a statement.
“With millions of Ukrainians displaced at the time of writing, as well as further displacement elsewhere this year, notably in Burkina Faso and Myanmar, total forced displacement now exceeds 100 million people,” the report says.
“This means 1 in every 78 people on earth has been forced to flee — a dramatic milestone that few would have expected a decade ago.”
Millions of Ukrainians have been forced to flee
The UN report released Thursday largely focuses on 2021, noting that year was “perhaps most notable for the sheer number of existing conflicts that escalated and new conflicts that flared up.” But its authors note that developments in early 2022 were impossible to ignore.
“It is one of the largest forced displacement crises since World War II, and certainly the fastest,” the report says.
Turkey hosted the largest refugee population in 2021
In 2021, the report says, Turkey hosted the world’s largest refugee population, nearly 3.8 million people.
And the report says more than two thirds of the number of refugees and Venezuelans displaced abroad came from just five countries: Syria (6.8 million), Venezuela (4.6 million), Afghanistan (2.7 million), South Sudan (2.4 million) and Myanmar (1.2 million).
The number of displaced people worldwide has increased every year over the past decade and stands at the highest level since recordkeeping began, the report says.
The report’s release comes just days before World Refugee Day on Monday, when organizations work to raise awareness about the plight of refugees.
