The UN refugee agency said persecution and conflict in places like Syria and Afghanistan raised the total number of refugees and internally displaced people worldwide to a record 65.3 million at the end of last year.
The Geneva-based agency urged leaders from Europe and elsewhere to do more to end the wars that are fanning the exodus of people from their homelands.
“I hope that the message carried by those forcibly displaced reaches the leaderships: We need action, political action, to stop conflicts,” Filippo Grandi, the UN high commissioner for Refugees, said of the figures, which released for World Refugee Day. “The message that they have carried is: ‘If you don’t solve problems, problems will come to you.'”
With stark detail, UNHCR said that on average, 24 people had been displaced every minute of every day last year — or 34,000 people a day — up from six every minute in 2005. Global displacement has roughly doubled since 1997, and risen by 50 percent since 2011 alone — when the Syria war began.
More than half of all refugees came from three countries: Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia.
There are an estimated 4.9 million refugees from Syria, 2.7 million from Afghanistan and 1.1. million from Somalia.
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