The number of forcibly displaced people grew to a record in 2016

By THE DATA TEAM

THE number of people who have been forcibly displaced from their homes reached 65.6m in 2016, the highest level since records began, according to a new report from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). A third of these are refugees and asylum-seekers who have fled abroad; the rest still live in the same country.

Three countries account for over half of the global total of 17.2m refugees who come under the remit of the UNHCR (this figure does not include a further 5.3m Palestinian refugees). The identity of this trio should not surprise. Prolonged conflict in Afghanistan, and younger wars in Syria and South Sudan, have created large refugee outflows and also uprooted people from their homes within these countries. Some 5.5m Syrian refugees have now fled the country since the war began. Another 6.3m are internally displaced. The number of Afghan refugees fell from 2.7m to 2.5m last year, after Pakistan repatriated hundreds of thousands of Afghans, many of whom had lived there all their lives. South Sudan is home to the fastest-growing refugee crisis in the world. Numbers almost doubled to 1.4m in 2016; a further 2m have been uprooted within the country.