The United Nations Human Rights Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has published the Global Trends report 2020, which shows that nearly 82.4 million people were displaced as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations and events seriously disturbing public order in 2020.
This marks a four per cent increase on the record-high 79.5 million internationally displaced people at the end of 2019.
The report shows that by the end of 2020 there were 20.7 million refugees under UNHCR mandate, 5.7 million Palestine refugees and 3.9 million Venezuelans displaced abroad. Another 48 million people were internally displaced (IDPs) within their own countries. A further 4.1 million were asylum-seekers. UNHCR highlight that these numbers indicate that despite the COVID-19 pandemic and calls for a global ceasefire, conflict continued to chase people from their homes.
More than two thirds of all people who fled abroad came from five countries: Syria (6.7 million), Venezuela (4.0 million), Afghanistan (2.6 million), South Sudan (2.2 million) and Myanmar (1.1 million). For the seventh year in a row, Turkey hosted the largest refugee population worldwide (3.7 million refugees), followed by Colombia (1.7 million, including Venezuelans displaced abroad), Pakistan (1.4 million), Uganda (1.4 million) and Germany (1.2 million).
Figures in the 2020 Global Trends are based on data reported by governments, non-governmental organizations and UNHCR. Numbers are rounded to the closest hundred or thousand. As some adjustments may appear later in the year in UNHCR’s Refugee Data Finder, figures contained in this report should be considered as provisional and subject to change.
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