Khartoum: The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, approximately 110 million people have been forced to leave their homes due to hostilities, persecution, or human rights abuses. The war in Sudan, which has caused nearly 2 million people to flee their homes since April, is just the most recent of many crises that have contributed to the staggering number.
Prior to the release of the UNHCR's Global Trends Report for 2022 on Wednesday, Filippo Grandi, the agency's director, told reporters in Geneva, "It's quite an indictment on the state of our world."
More than 11 million people fled Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, making it the fastest and largest mass emigration since World War II. This year alone, an additional 19 million people were forcibly displaced.
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Emergency situations arise all the time," Grandi said. Three to four times as many emergencies were reported last year—35—by the agency. Grandi continued, "Very few make your headlines," claiming that after Western citizens were evacuated, the war in Sudan disappeared from most front pages.
More than 1 million people were also uprooted by conflict in each of Ethiopia, Myanmar, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2022.
Most people who have been displaced globally have sought safety inside the boundaries of their own country. According to the UNHCR report, 35 million of them have fled to other nations, making them refugees. According to Grandi, the majority of refugees are hosted by low- to middle-income nations in Asia and Africa rather than wealthy nations in Europe or North America.
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The majority of the 3.8 million refugees currently living in Turkiye are Syrians who have fled their country's civil war. Iran takes in 3.4 million refugees, mostly Afghans. There are 5.7 million Ukrainian refugees, however, who are dispersed throughout nations in Europe and beyond. According to UNHCR data, the number of stateless people increased as well in 2022, reaching 4.4 million; however, this figure is thought to be an undercount.
With regard to asylum requests, the US received 730,400 of the total number of new applications in 2022. According to Grandi, it also has the largest backlog in its asylum system.
Reforming the asylum system to make it faster and more effective is one of the things that must be done, he said.
Recently, the US, Spain, and Canada announced plans to establish asylum processing facilities throughout Latin America in an effort to cut down on the number of people making the perilous journey up to the US-Mexico border.
The difficulties that asylum seekers must overcome have increased along with their number. "We notice resistance. Immigration and refugee admissions regulations are becoming increasingly strict. We observe the criminalization of immigrants and refugees in many nations, where they are held accountable for all wrongdoing, said Grandi.
In an effort to reduce migration across the Mediterranean, European leaders renewed their financial commitments to North African countries last week. However, the British government continues to insist on a failed plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, which UNHCR opposes. Despite opposition from human rights organisations, there were some victories, according to Grandi, who cited what he called a positive sign in the European Union's negotiations for a new migration and asylum pact.
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Grandi also praised the fact that, compared to 2021, 114,000 more refugees were resettled in 2022. However, he acknowledged that this was "still a drop in the ocean."
