Twenty-four people are forced from their homes every minute by war and persecution, or one person of every 113 on earth. As near as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) can estimate, about half of these are children.
65.3 million is the highest worldwide number of forcibly displaced persons in the agency’s experience. 2015 also saw unequaled numbers of asylum-seeking children unaccompanied/separated from parents (98,400), people displaced but unable to leave their home country (40.8 million), and asylum seekers (3.2 million).
UNHCR says that long-lasting conflicts, restarted conflicts, and fewer solutions for the violently displaced are the causes of this catastrophe. In 2015, only 201,400 people were able to return to their countries of origin, 107,100 refugees were resettled in thirty countries, and 32,000 refugees were naturalized (over 16,000 of them in Canada).
Sub-Saharan Africa, the region to which Sudan belongs, had 18.4 million refugees and internally displaced persons by year’s end.
All of these facts are from the June 20, 2016 UNHCR article “With 1 human in every 113 affected, forced displacement hits record high” at:
A simpler, shorter article was published by National Public Radio in the US on June 20, 2016 and may be found here:
Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2015, a report by UNHCR (combining information from partner organizations, governments and UNHCR itself), may be found here:
