This is the last article you can read this month
You can read more article this month
You can read more articles this month
Sorry your limit is up for this month
Reset on:
Please help support the Morning Star by subscribing here
THE number of displaced people across the globe passed 80 million this year, the United Nations said today.
According to UN figures, nearly 30 million of the total are refugees.
The coronavirus pandemic, war, violence and persecution continue to force people to flee from their homes, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) report said.
It called for action from world leaders to address the crisis, which it said is worsening due to violence in Syria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Somalia and Yemen.
“We are now surpassing another bleak milestone that will continue to grow unless world leaders stop wars,” UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi said.
“With forced displacement doubling in the last decade, the international community is failing to safeguard peace.”
The UN warned that the coronavirus crisis has “disrupted every aspect of human life and severely worsened existing challenges for the forcibly displaced and stateless.”
Despite the number of refugees, global asylum applications dropped by a third during the first half of the year compared with the same period in 2019 — caused, the UN suggested, by restrictions on movement due to Covid-19.
