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.”
