The Sobering Statistics of the ‘Displaced’ people
By Habib Siddiqui
June 20 was observed as the International Refugees
Day. The Office of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations program with the mandate to protect
refugees, forcibly displaced communities and stateless people, and assist in
their voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to a third
country.
According to the UNHCR, the population of forcibly displaced people grew substantially from 43.3 million
(m) in 2009 to 70.8 m in 2018, reaching a record high. Most of this increase
was between 2012 and 2015, driven mainly by the Syrian conflict. But conflicts
in other areas also contributed to this rise, e.g., Iraq, Yemen, the Democratic
Republic of the Congo (DRC) and South Sudan, as well as the massive flow of
Rohingya refugees from Buddhist Myanmar to Bangladesh at the end of 2017.
In 2018, 13.6 m people were
newly displaced, including 2.8 m who sought protection abroad (as new
asylum-seekers or newly registered refugees) and 10.8 m internally displaced
people (IDPs), who were forced to flee but remained in their own countries.
This means that on every day of 2018, an average of 37,000 people were newly
displaced. According to data reported by UNHCR offices, over the course of
2018, some 5.4 m people became IDPs, having been forced to move within their
countries due to conflict and violence.
What is so disturbing is the
fact that the proportion of the world’s population who were displaced grew
faster than the global population! Of these nearly 71 million forcibly
displaced people, 41.3 million are IDPs (as a consequence of armed conflict,
generalized violence and human rights violations), 25.9 m refugees (of these
20.4 m fall under UNHCR mandate, including 5.5 m Palestinians that are under the
UNRWA) and 3.5 m asylum seekers.
During 2018, 1.1 m people
were reported as new refugees, down from the 2.7 m reported in 2017. Syrians
were the largest group of new refugees registered on a group or prima facie
basis, accounting for more than half of new registrations mostly in Turkey. The
conflict in South Sudan continued to displace many, with 179,200 new refugees
registered in 2018. Refugees from DRC constituted the third largest group of
new refugees with 123,400 people forcibly displaced across its borders in 2018.
Most fled to Uganda (119,900).
The refugee population under
UNHCR’s mandate has nearly doubled since 2012. In 2018, the increase was driven
particularly by internal displacement in Ethiopia and asylum-seekers fleeing
Venezuela.
Some 1.6 m Ethiopians made up
the largest newly displaced population in 2018, 98 per cent of them within
their country. This increase more than doubled the existing internally
displaced population in the country.
Syrians were the next largest
newly displaced population, with 889,400 people during 2018. Of these, 632,700
were newly displaced/registered outside the country, while the remainder were
internally displaced. Nigeria also had a high number of newly displaced people
with 661,800, of which an estimated 581,800 were displaced within the country’s
borders.
Turkey was the country of
asylum that registered the largest number of new refugees in 2018 with 397,600
Syrians registered under the Government’s Temporary Protection Regulation. This
was followed by Sudan which reported new refugees mainly from South Sudan
(99,400) and Syria (81,700). Uganda also registered 160,600 new refugees in
2018, mainly from DRC (119,900).
The vast majority
of newly displaced people remained close to home. For example, most Syrians
fled to Turkey, where there were half a m new refugee registrations and asylum
applications. Most of those forced to flee South Sudan went to Sudan or Uganda,
and those displaced from DRC also headed to Uganda.
At the end of
2018, Syrians still made up the largest forcibly displaced population, with
13.0 m people living in displacement, including 6.7 m refugees, 6.2 m
internally displaced people (IDPs) and 140,000 asylum-seekers. Colombians were
the second largest group, with 8.0 m forcibly displaced, most of them (98 per
cent) inside their country at the end of 2018. A total of 5.4 m Congolese from
DRC were also forcibly displaced, of whom 4,517,000 were IDPs and 854,000 were
refugees or asylum-seekers. Other large displaced populations of IDPs, refugees
or asylum-seekers at the end of 2018 were from Afghanistan (5.1 m), South Sudan
(4.2 m), Somalia (3.7 m), Ethiopia (2.8 m), Sudan (2.7 m), Nigeria (2.5 m),
Iraq (2.4 m) and Yemen (2.2 m).
As in 2017, over two thirds
of the world’s refugees come from just five countries: Syria, Afghanistan,
South Sudan, Myanmar and Somalia. As has been the case since 2014, the main
country of origin for refugees in 2018 was Syria, with 6.7 m at the end of the
year, an increase over the 6.3 m from a year earlier. The vast majority of
these refugees (i.e., 85 per cent) remained in countries in the region. Turkey
continued to host the largest population of Syrian refugees, 3.6 m by the end
of the year. Countries in the Middle East and North Africa with significant
numbers of Syrian refugees included Lebanon (944,200), Jordan (676,300) and
Iraq (252,500). Outside the region, countries with large Syrian refugee
populations included Germany (532,100), Sweden (109,300) and Sudan (93,500).
Refugees from Afghanistan
were the second largest group by country of origin, in what has remained a
significant population since the 1980s. At the end of 2018, there were 2.7 m
Afghan refugees, mainly in Pakistan and the Islamic Republic of Iran, who
between them hosted 88 per cent.
South Sudan remained the
third most common country of origin and neighboring countries hosted almost all
refugees originating from there. Of 2.3 m South Sudanese refugees most were in
Sudan (852,100), followed by Uganda (788,800) Ethiopia (422,100), Kenya
(115,200) and DRC (95,700).
The refugee population from
Myanmar, the fourth largest population group by country of origin, remained
stable at 1.1 m. Most refugees from Myanmar were hosted by Bangladesh
(906,600). Other countries with sizable populations of refugees from Myanmar
were Malaysia (114,200), Thailand (97,600) and India (18,800). India, under the
fascist Hindutvadi BJP rule, has been very hostile to the plight of minorities,
let alone Rohingya refugees from neighboring Myanmar. In recent years, under
the pretext of updating the National Register of
Citizens (NRC), it has been doggedly working towards making some 4 million
Bengali-speaking
(mostly Muslim) people in the state of Assam declared as non-citizens, which
would surely compound the global problem of forced displacement of people multifold.
As has been the case since
2014, Turkey was the country hosting the largest refugee population, with 3.7 m
at the end of 2018, up from 3.5 m in December 2017. More than 98 per cent of
the refugees in Turkey were from Syria with 3.6 m making up more than 98 per
cent of the entire refugee population.
At the end of 2018, Pakistan
hosted the second largest refugee population with 1.4 m refugees, almost
exclusively from Afghanistan. Uganda continued to host a large refugee
population, numbering 1.2 m at the end of 2018. Uganda was host to refugee
populations from several countries, the largest being from South Sudan (with
788,800 at the end of 2018). The refugee population in Sudan increased by about
19 per cent over the course of 2018 to just over 1 m, with Sudan becoming the
country with the fourth largest refugee population.
During 2018, the refugee
population in Germany continued to increase, numbering 1,063,800 at the end of
the year. More than half were from Syria (532,100), while other countries of
origin included Iraq (136,500) and Afghanistan (126,000).
In recent years, western
countries have been making much fuss about the migration issue, as if they are
burdened with the task of hosting them. But the facts are quite the opposite!
Comparing the size of a refugee
population with that of a host country can help us to measure the impact of
hosting that population. According to the UNHCR statistics, Lebanon, while
hosting the seventh largest refugee population, had the highest refugee
population relative to national population with 156 refugees per 1,000 national
population. Similarly, Jordan hosted the tenth largest refugee population but
the second largest relative to national population with 72 refugees per 1,000.
These figures relate only to the refugee population under UNHCR’s mandate, and
Lebanon and Jordan respectively hosted an additional half a m and 2.2 m
Palestine refugees under UNRWA’s mandate.
Turkey hosted the third
largest refugee population relative to its national population with 45 refugees
per 1,000. Half of the ten countries with the highest refugee population
relative to national population were in sub-Saharan Africa. In high-income
countries, there are, on average, just 2.7 refugees per 1,000 national
population, but this figure is more than doubled in middle- and low-income
countries, with 5.8 refugees per 1,000.
Is there any solution to the
growing refugees and IDPs problem in a foreseeable future?
Finding durable solutions to
enable millions of displaced people around the world to rebuild their lives in
dignity and safety will not be possible without identifying contributing and
root causes of the problem. The UNHCR has established the Comprehensive
Refugee Response Framework as part of the Global Compact
on Refugees (an agreement for shared responsibility between UNHCR,
governments and other organizations) as a framework to address the issue. In
recent decades, it has recognized the inadequacy of the traditional solutions –
voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement in third countries.
To address this need, the new Framework has included additional measures such
as expanding access to resettlement, other complementary pathways, and
proactively fostering good conditions for voluntary repatriation.
Resettlement in a new country
that is neither the country of origin, nor the country of asylum, remains a
life-saving tool to ensure the protection of those refugees most at risk. UNHCR
estimated that 1.4 million refugees were in need of resettlement. However, only
81,300 places for new submissions were provided in 2018. The gap between needs
and actual resettlement places continued to grow.
One durable solution is the
local integration of refugees, a complex, gradual process in which refugees
move towards permanent residence rights and, in many cases, citizenship in the
country of asylum. Legal, economic, social, and cultural aspects of local
integration are also part of the process.
There is increased awareness
of statelessness globally. It is to be noted that stateless people are not considered
nationals under the law of any state. They may not be able to go to school, see
a doctor, get a job, open a bank account, buy a house or even get married. They
are also generally not counted or registered in the ways the rest of the
population is, meaning their needs are not planned for and their existence not
acknowledged. Identifying stateless people is the first step towards addressing
the difficulties they face as well as enabling governments, UNHCR and others to
prevent and reduce statelessness.
As I see it, while the
efforts and measures of the UNHCR to alleviating the pains and sufferings of
the displaced people are admirable, they fall short of addressing the core
problems, which led to forced displacement. Unless the guilty parties, state
and non-state actors, are tried and punished for their heinous crimes that
forces displacement we won’t be able to arrest this menace. To put it
succinctly, given the grim reality of our time that the major culprits within
the state actors are either Veto-wielding powers or their client states, unless
the world citizenry are serious in ensuring the authority of the International
Criminal Court with sweeping powers to try and punish the criminals - big and
small - we may never see a lessening of the ‘displaced’ people.
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