Refugee crisis escalates, 65.3m flee

Conflicts and persecution have driven a record 65.3 million people from their homes.

Here are some facts:

- One in every 113 people globally is either an asylum-seeker, internally displaced or a refugee.

- An average of 24 people worldwide were forced to flee every minute last year.

- At the end of 2015 there were 65.3 million forcibly displaced people. They included 21.3 million refugees, 40.8 million internally displaced and 3.2 million asylum seekers.

- If they were a country they would be the world's 21st largest.

- More than half of refugees come from just three countries: Syria (4.9m), Afghanistan (2.7m) and Somalia (1.1 m).

- Colombia has the highest number of internally displaced people (6.9m) followed by Syria (6.6m) and Iraq (4.4m).

- Developing regions host 86 per cent of refugees. Turkey has by far the largest number at 2.5 million.

- Lebanon has the highest concentration relative to its own population with nearly one refugee for every five citizens.

- Nearly one in 200 children in the world is a refugee. The number of child refugees has more than doubled in the last decade.

- Growing numbers of children are crossing borders alone. Last year, more than 100,000 unaccompanied minors applied for asylum in 78 countries - triple the number in 2014.

(Source: UNHCR and UNICEF)

Thomson Reuters Foundation


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Source: AAP



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