UN: Record 68.5 m displaced last year

Geneva, June 19 

The UN refugee agency on Tuesday reported that nearly 69 million people who have fled war, violence and persecution were forcibly displaced last year, a record for the fifth straight year. 

Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said the continued crises in places like South Sudan and Congo, as well as the exodus of Muslim Rohingya from Myanmar that started last year, raised the overall figure of forced displacements in 2017 to 68.5 million. Of that, 16.2 million were newly displaced last year — an average of more than 44,000 people per day. Most have been displaced for longer than that, some forced to flee multiple times. 

“The global figure has gone up again by a couple of million,” the Commissioner said, adding, “This is because of protracted conflicts and lack of solutions for those conflicts that continue pressure on civilians and pushed them to leave their homes.”  — AFP