There are 110 million internally displaced persons or refugees in the world. a number considered a record by the United Nations. The data, to be released this Wednesday, indicates a sharp increase in the number of Latin Americans seeking asylum outside their country.
Venezuelans top the list of asylum seekers worldwide, with Cubans and Nicaraguans taking the top spots.
Overall, the international flow of refugees was primarily driven by the war in Ukraine, the crisis in Sudan and an overview of how many Afghan refugees there actually are worldwide. In addition, climate crises and violence have contributed significantly to the explosion in the number of victims.
This is an unprecedented emergency for the United Nations that must be addressed immediately. In just one year, the army of refugees and internally displaced persons has grown by 19 million people.
According to the company, all indications are that these numbers will continue to rise in 2023 as the crisis in Sudan deepens and the fallout from the war in Ukraine.
These numbers tell us that some people get into conflict too quickly and are too slow to find solutions. The result is devastation, displacement and suffering for each of the millions of people who have been forcibly displaced from their homes.”
Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees
Of the global total, 35.3 million are refugees, people who have crossed an international border in search of safety. 62.5 million people have been internally displaced in their countries of origin due to conflict and violence.
9/May/23 A Sudanese refugee woman waits for a delivery of food from a food program near the Chadian border
Image: Zohra Bensemr/Portal
Ukraine
The war in Ukraine was the main cause of displacement in 2022. The number of refugees from Ukraine rose from 27,300 at the end of 2021 to 5.7 million at the end of 2022. According to the United Nations, this is the “largest influx of refugees since the Second World War”.
Another weighing factor was the upward revision of estimates of the number of refugees from Afghanistan, particularly in Iran.
Likewise, the report reflected upward revisions to the number of Venezuelans made by Colombia and Peru.
28.22. People who fled the Russian invasion of Ukraine wait to board a bus bound for a refugee center in Przemysl in Medyka, Poland
Image: Bryan Woolston/Portal
Two out of every five asylum seekers worldwide are Hispanic
According to the survey, one of the most striking data is the significant increase in asylum seekers in other countries. Of the ten largest nationalities, six are resident in the region.
At the end of 2022, 800,600 refugees and 5.2 million other people in need of international protection were living in countries in the Americas region, most of them Venezuelans.
The total of 6 million represents a 17% increase from the end of 2021, largely due to updated estimates of the number of other people in need of international protection in Colombia, which increased by 611,500, and in Peru, which increased by 178,400 .
Colombia (2.5 million), Peru (976,400) and Ecuador (555,400) are home to most refugees and other people in need of international protection.
Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti
According to the United Nations, of the 2.6 million new individual asylum applications worldwide by the end of 2022, 56% or 1.4 million asylum seekers came from just 10 countries.
In the Americas, the number of Venezuelans seeking asylum during the year totaled 264,000, almost three times more than the year before, when the number was 92,400. Also in 2022 the number was the highest in the world.
In the case of Cuba, the number of asylum applications rose from around 30,000 in 2021 to 194,000 in 2022.
In Nicaragua, the jump from 110,000 in 2021 to 165,000 in 2022 is the fourth highest number in the world.
Colombia, Honduras and Haiti remain on the list of the top 10 nationalities seeking asylum. Two out of every five asylum seekers worldwide came from Latin America.
While new asylum applications from these countries were mainly registered in other countries of the region, with most asylum applications being made in the United States of America, Costa Rica and Mexico, a significant number of asylum applications were made in Spain.
9.Apr.22 Family camp at the Movimiento Juventud 2000 shelter, made up of refugees from countries like Honduras and Haiti seeking asylum in the United States
Image: Patrick T Fallon/AFP
Poor countries take in most of the refugees
The UN also highlighted that the figures also confirmed that it is low and middleincome countries, not rich economies, that host most displaced people.
The 46 least developed countries generate less than 1.3% of global GDP but host more than 20% of all refugees.
Overall, emerging economies host more than 76% of all refugees worldwide.