uKarin, Afghanistan, Sudan: The number of displaced people and refugees around the world has risen to a record high. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva reported on Wednesday that some 110 million people are currently fleeing, two-thirds of them in their countries of origin. The organization calls for more efforts to combat the causes of flight and to support refugees. In June 2022, about 100 million people have fled.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, said the numbers are devastating. „It’s an indictment of the state of our world,” he said. There are more and more crises, but there are hardly any solutions. For the 5.7 million internally displaced, the journey ended last year, but only 340,000 refugees from abroad have returned home.
Grandi said that immigration and aviation should not be combined together. He said that if wealthier countries offered more legal avenues to immigration for people seeking work in countries other than their home country, fewer immigrants would be offered asylum. Asylum and similar protection are reserved for people fleeing war, conflict, persecution and violence. According to the United Nations Refugee Convention, all countries are obligated to accept them.
In Germany, nearly 50,000 people have recently been rejected
Because there are no legal immigration routes, Grandi said, asylum systems are overburdened. However, the authorities do not acknowledge the reasons why many asylum seekers flee. Those who need protection have lost their reputation, Grandi said. In Germany in 2022, approximately 230,000 asylum decisions were rejected by approximately 50,000 people. About 50,000 more cases were dealt with – for example because people in other countries had registered or had their applications withdrawn.
Grandi expressed his fears of the spread of the current crisis in Sudan. Hundreds of thousands of refugees have found shelter in neighboring countries. But the east of the country is known to be the territory of people smugglers. If law and order are not restored in Sudan soon, Grandi said, these smugglers may put Sudanese on escape routes „to Libya and beyond.” Many refugee boats leave for Europe from the Mediterranean country of Libya. In Sudan, there has been a power struggle between the forces of the de facto president and his former vice president since mid-April. According to the United Nations, nearly 1.9 million people have fled since the violence began.
UNHCR’s annual Global Trends report on Wednesday looks at the refugee situation over the past year. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine in 2022 led to the fastest movement of refugees since World War II: according to the report, 5.7 million people were displaced within Ukraine’s borders or fled abroad by the end of 2022. At the end of 2022, A total of 108.4 million people fled persecution, war, violence, human rights violations and the consequences of climate change, up by 19.1 million from the previous year.
A third of the displaced have fled abroad. Two-thirds of these were in low- and middle-income countries. They usually stay in countries neighboring their home country with the hope of returning home soon. Grandi said it is a myth that refugees mainly go to rich countries in Europe or North America. Turkey was hosting the largest number of refugees at the end of 2022, followed by Iran, where most Afghans reside, and Colombia and Germany.
Grandi praised the planned reform of the EU asylum system. In the future, the EU wants asylum seekers arriving from a country considered relatively safe to be held in a reception facility under conditions similar to detention after crossing a border. After a cursory examination of applications, those who are rejected must be reinstated immediately. Not all is well, Grandi said, but at least the EU has agreed something. He added, “We clearly believe that asylum seekers should not be put in prison. Applying for asylum is not a crime.”
