More than 100 million people are currently fleeing the world, more than at any time since World War II. In Geneva, the UN refugee agency UNHCR spoke of a “dramatic milestone” that had been reached as a result of the Russian war against Ukraine and crises in Afghanistan and other countries. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, has warned that the terrible trend will continue if the international community does not find a way to permanently resolve conflicts.
The expulsion from Ukraine is the largest and fastest growing such crisis since UNHCR was founded in 1951, UNHCR reported in its World Refugee Report on Thursday. Because of the devastating consequences of the war against Ukraine, the UNHCR gave the current number of refugees as an exception. The report otherwise refers to the past year.
At the end of December 2021, 89.3 million people were fleeing war, violence, persecution and human rights violations, eight percent more than a year earlier. The number has been increasing for many years, at the end of 2021 there were significantly more than twice as many people fleeing as ten years before. After Turkey, Colombia, Uganda and Pakistan, Germany was the largest host country, with 1.3 million hosts.