On the run: 43 million people

The UN refugee agency (UNCR) released its “Global Trends” annual report on Tuesday, announcing that this year the number of people uprooted by conflict and persecution is the highest since the mid 1990s. The second negative trend is that the number of refugees who voluntarily go back to their home countries has dropped to its lowest level in 20 years.

In 2009 43.3 million people were displaced from their homes by conflict or persecution, whereas the global number of refugees worldwide remained stable at 15.2 million. Normally around 1 million voluntarily repatriations take place each year but in 2009 the figure was down to 251 thousand; according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antònio Guterres, this may be because “”major conflicts such as those in Afghanistan, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo show no signs of being resolved. Conflicts that had appeared to be ending or were on the way to being resolved, such as in southern Sudan or in Iraq, are stagnating”.

The number of people displaced by conflict within their country also increased, up 4% to 27.1 million in 2009, mainly due to persistent conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan and Somalia. South Africa became the single largest asylum destination in the world after receiving more than 222 thousand new claims last year; in total 112,400 refugees were admitted for resettlement by 19 countries, including the United States (79,900), Canada (12,500) and Australia (11,100). The main refugee groups resettled in 2009 were from Myanmar (24,800), Iraq (23,000), Bhutan (17,500) and Somalia (5,500).

To download the full report: www.unhcr.org