Tema-Ghana, June 14, GNA – The full-scale war in Ukraine, alongside conflict elsewhere, and climate-driven upheaval, have meant that more people than ever remained uprooted from their homes last year.
“This heightening the urgency for immediate, collective action to alleviate the causes and impact of displacement,” the United Nation Refugee Agency flagship annual report, Global Trends in Forced Displacement 2022, made available to the Ghana News Agency has shown.
Mr Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, stressed that the trend showed that some people were far too quick to rush to conflict, and way too slow to find solutions.
“The consequence is devastation, displacement, and anguish for each of the millions of people forcibly uprooted from their homes,” he stated ahead of World Refugee Day commemoration on June 20th.
“People around the world continue to show extraordinary hospitality for refugees as they extend protection and help to those in need,” Mr Grandi added.
He noted that “but much more international support and more equitable responsibility sharing is required, especially with those countries that are hosting most of the world’s displaced.
“Above all, much more must be done to end conflict and remove obstacles so that refugees have the viable option to return home voluntarily, safely and with dignity.”
Data from the report indicate by the end of 2022, the number of people displaced by war, persecution, violence, and human rights abuses stood at a record 108.4 million, up 19.1 million on a year earlier, which was the biggest ever increase.
The upward trajectory in global forced displacement showed no sign of slowing in 2023 as the eruption of conflict in Sudan triggered new outflows, pushing the global total to an estimated 110 million by May.
Of the global total, 35.3 million were refugees, people who crossed an international border to find safety, while a greater share – 58 percent, representing 62.5 million people – were displaced in their home countries due to conflict and violence.
According to the report, the war in Ukraine was the top driver of displacement in 2022. The number of refugees from Ukraine soared from 27,300 at the end of 2021 to 5.7 million at the end of 2022 – representing the fastest outflow of refugees anywhere since World War II.
In 2022, over 339,000 refugees returned to 38 countries, and though was lower than the previous year there were significant voluntary returns to South Sudan, Syria, Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire.
Meantime, 5.7 million internally displaced people returned in 2022, notably within Ethiopia, Myanmar, Syria, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
At the end of 2022, an estimated 4.4 million people worldwide were stateless or of undetermined nationality, 2 per cent more than at the end of 2021.
The 46 least developed countries account for less than 1.3 percent of global gross domestic product, yet they hosted more than 20 percent of all refugees.
The Global Trends report was launched six months ahead of the second Global Refugee Forum, a major gathering in Geneva bringing together a range of actors to find fresh solutions for and embed solidarity with people forced to flee and their hosts.
