Graphic detail | Daily chart

The world’s refugees and internally displaced

Forced displacement has reached its highest level since records began

By THE DATA TEAM

FORCED displacement has reached its highest level since records began, according to a new report by the UNHCR, the UN’s refugee body. The number of people who have been driven from their homes stands at 65.3m in 2015—or 0.9% of the world’s population—an increase of almost 6m from a year earlier. Around one-third of those are refugees, while the rest are internally displaced or asylum-seekers. The reasons are depressingly familiar. Prolonged conflicts in Somalia and Afghanistan combined with newer ones in places like South Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen create large refugee outflows. At the same time the number of migrants who have returned home or been resettled elsewhere remains low, compared with the throngs of the newly displaced, at around 300,000 a year.

Three countries produce more than half the world’s 16.1m refugees (excluding 5.2m Palestinians who fall under the care of a different UN body). Syria is now the main source country for refugees, with 4.9m residing outside the country. For decades Afghanistan was the biggest country of origin, and although it has been recently overtaken by Syria, it still has 2.7m refugees. And some 1.1m Somalis have fled from persecution and conflict there.

Unsurprisingly, the burden of housing those escaping torment tends to fall disproportionately on neighbouring countries. Thus Turkey, which housed 2.5m mostly Syrian migrants in 2015, is the biggest host of refugees, followed by Pakistan where nearly all refugees were Afghans. For both the host nations, where an influx of foreigners can stoke racial tensions and put a strain on government services, and the refugees, there is no end to this crisis in sight.

This is an update of another blogpost. See the original here.

Discover more

Three reasons why oil prices are remarkably stable

Can it last?

Why America is a “flawed democracy”

EIU’s index plots the country’s democratic decline since 2006


Five charts compare Democrats and Republicans on job creation

Our analysis of the past eight American presidents