Number of displaced by war, violence and persecution reached the record of 123.2 million at the end of 2024, but fell to 122.1 million in late April this year
The number of people forcibly moved worldwide has a slight drop in comparison with the record, but remains “unsustainably high”, with the world’s list of refugees and people in need of international protection, warned on Thursday (12). The number of war, violence and persecution, reached a record of 123.2 million at the end of 2024, but fell to 122.1 million in late April this year. “The number of displaced people is currently the triple of 2011 and demonstrates a deep global crisis” around “civil protection,” warned Jan Egeland, Secretary-General of the Norwegian Council for Refugees (NRC), an important humanitarian organization present in about 40 countries. The main causes of forced displacements remain the great conflicts: Sudan, Myanmar and Ukraine.
“We are seeing many countries closing and dramatically cutting humanitarian financing … There are governments spending on weapons resources that should be invested in refugees and the protection of the most vulnerable,” Egelland explained. UNHCR, however, warned that the evolution of great conflicts around the world will determine whether the number will increase again. UNHCR (UN High Commissioner of the United Nations for Refugees) highlights in its annual report that this slight fall is due to nearly two million Syrians who managed to return to their homes after the fall of President Bashar Al Assad’s regime and more than a decade of war. This factor in Syria, added to the fall in the number of Afghan refugees, makes Venezuela the country with the largest combined number of refugees and people in need of international protection, with 370.2 thousand and 5.9 million, respectively, at the end of 2024, according to UNHCR. This number is 2% higher than in 2023.
Most of these Venezuelans are in Latin America, especially in Colombia (which, with 2.8 million inhabitants, is the third country in the world with the largest refugee population), followed by Peru (1.1 million), Brazil (605.7 thousand), Chile (523.8 thousand) and Ecuador (441.6 thousand). In the United States, most asylum requests were from Venezuelans (116,700). UNHCR pointed out that Venezuelans were the second nationality to present the largest number of asylum requests last year, with 268,100. The Colombians were fourth (149,500) and the Sudanese led the list (441,400). In the first half of 2024 (latest data available), the United States received a total of 729,100 asylum requests. Most came from Latin American and Caribbean countries, mainly Venezuelans (116,700), Colombians (79,300), Mexicans (54,000) and Haitians (46,600).
*With information from Estadão Content
Posted by Sarah Paula
