100 Million People Displaced Globally in 2022, Says UN

Efforts underway to save refugees

By Xinhua

Dec 27, 2022 09:03 PM

Palestinian boys play football in a street at the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, on Nov. 30, 2022. (Photo: Xinhua)

A hundred million people across the world were forced to leave their homes in 2022 and the United Nations is continuing to help those in need in a myriad of ways, UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, said on Monday.

Filippo Grandi, head of the agency, described the figure as "a record that should never have been set," UN News said.

The figure is up from some 90 million in 2021. 

Outbreaks of violence, or protracted conflicts, were key migration factors in many parts of the world, including Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Syria and Myanmar.

Thousands of desperate migrants looked to Europe as a preferred destination, putting their lives in the hands of human traffickers, and setting off on perilous journeys across the Mediterranean, UN News warned. 

It has now been more than seven years since the protracted conflict began in Yemen, which precipitated a humanitarian catastrophe and has forced more than 4.3 million people to leave their homes.

In May, the UN migration agency IOM and the European Union's humanitarian aid wing, ECHO, announced that they were scaling up efforts to respond to the needs of more than 325,000 displaced, including migrants and the communities that host them.

"The situation is also getting worse for migrants in Yemen, especially women, who are living in dire conditions in Yemen with little control over their lives," said Christa Rottensteiner, chief of the IOM mission in the country.

In Syria, war has now been upending lives for 11 years: Nearly 5 million children have never known the country at peace, UN News added.

More than 80,000 Syrians call the huge Za'atari camp in Jordan "home," and many of them may have to remain outside of their country for the foreseeable future.

"Prospects for return for the time being do not look promising," said Dominik Bartsch, UNHCR representative in the Jordanian capital Amman, in July. "We are not seeing an environment in Syria that would be conducive to returns."

Overall, Jordan hosts around 675,000 registered refugees from Syria, and most of them live in local communities, with only 17 percent in the refugee camps, Za'atari and Azraq.

More than five years ago, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled their homes in Myanmar. Almost a million live in the vast Cox's Bazar camp across the border in neighboring Bangladesh.

In March, the UN launched its latest response plan, calling for more than 881 million US dollars for the refugees, and neighboring communities, who are also reliant on aid.

According to UN News, refugees also found themselves under direct attack. In February, thousands of Eritreans were forced to flee a camp in the Afar region, after armed men stormed in, stealing belongings and killing residents.

Xinhua