UN: Nearly 3 million fled homes in 2020 despite COVID-19 pandemic

Nearly 3 million people fled their homes in 2020 despite the global pandemic that closed many borders over the past year, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said.

The Global Trends report Friday showed the total number of refugees has increased to 82.4 million people, making 1 percent of the world displaced.

“People were forced to flee their homes throughout the year despite an urgent appeal from the U.N. Secretary-General on 23 March 2020 calling for a global ceasefire to enable a concerted response to the pandemic,” the report reads.

“UNHCR data shows that arrivals of new refugees and asylum-seekers were sharply down in most regions – about 1.5 million fewer people than would have been expected in non-COVID circumstances, and reflecting how many of those seeking international protection in 2020 became stranded.”

There were 48 million people who were internally displaced in their countries while the rest of the displaced people left their country either due to conflict, human rights violations or persecution.

“COVID-19 seems to have had no impact on some of the key root causes that push people to flee,” Filippo Grandi, the United Nations’s high commissioner for refugees, told The Associated Press. “War, violence, discrimination, they have continued, no matter what, throughout the pandemic.”

The report says only 250,000 displaced people were able to get back to their home countries, BBC reported. Only 34,000 could be resettled in a third country.

The report also said there were 1 million babies born as refugees in the past two years.

Over 40 percent of all refugees are now children.

The countries with the highest number of displaced people are Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, South Sudan and Myanmar. More than two-thirds of refugees come from these countries. 

The countries taking in the most displaced people are Turkey, Colombia, Uganda, Pakistan and Germany.

The number of displaced people has doubled in the last 10 years, according to the report.