Food inflation threatens refugee crisis : Financial Times
- Almost half the global refugee population is accounted for by about 3m Afghans, mostly in Pakistan and Iran, and more than 2m Iraqis, mainly in Syria and Jordan. There are also about 500,000 refugees each from Colombia, Sudan and Somalia.
- These figures exclude an estimated 4.6m Palestinian refugees, who are the responsibility of the UN Relief and Works Agency.
- The report refutes claims that refugees are “flooding” industrialised countries, noting that six out of seven flee to neighbouring states.
Soaring food prices and the effects of global warming threaten to drive ever more people from their homes, the head of the United Nations refugee agency warned Tuesday.
The UNHCR said the number of refugees worldwide had risen for a second year running. Displaced people living outside their home country rose by almost 500,000 last year to 11.4m at the end of 2007, mainly due to the “volatile situation in Iraq”, the agency said in its annual Global Trends report.
The number of people displaced internally by conflict or persecution increased to 26m from 24.4m at the end of 2006. Another 25m have been forced from their homes by natural disasters.
António Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said: “After a five-year decline in the number of refugees between 2001 and 2005, we have now seen two years of increases, and that’s a concern.”
Speaking in London ahead of World Refugee Day on Friday, the former Portuguese prime minister said a complex mix of global challenges threatened even more forced displacement in the future.
“They range from multiple new conflict-related emergencies in world hotspots to bad governance, climate-induced environmental degradation that increases competition for scarce resources, and extreme price hikes that have hit the poor the hardest and are generating instability in many places.”
Almost half the global refugee population is accounted for by about 3m Afghans, mostly in Pakistan and Iran, and more than 2m Iraqis, mainly in Syria and Jordan. There are also about 500,000 refugees each from Colombia, Sudan and Somalia.
These figures exclude an estimated 4.6m Palestinian refugees, who are the responsibility of the UN Relief and Works Agency.
The report refutes claims that refugees are “flooding” industrialised countries, noting that six out of seven flee to neighbouring states.
While Europe remains a favoured destination for individual asylum seekers, the mass exodus from Zimbabwe has made South Africa one of the biggest recipients of asylum claims in recent years with more than 250,000 since 2002.
Apart from refugees who have crossed international frontiers, the UNHCR has a mandate to look after about half the 26m displaced by conflict within their own countries, bringing the total number of people under its care by the end of 2007 to an unprecedented 25.1m.
Food inflation threatens refugee crisis By Frances Williams in Geneva Published: June 17 2008 23:22 | Last updated: June 17 2008 23:22
Indexed under: Afghanistan, Economic disruption, IDPs (Internal Refugees), inflation, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Pakistan, Refugees, Syria, UNHCR, WHO