Number of people forcibly displaced hits new high of 68.5 mln in 2017: UN

By:Xinhua
update:June 20,2018

June 20,2018--A refugee child smiles at a Syrian refugee camp in Bar Elias, Bekaa Valley, eastern Lebanon, on June 19, 2018, ahead of World Refugee Day. After years of war in Syria, Syrian refugees continued their lives in Lebanon. The number of people forcibly displaced due to wars, other violence, and persecution worldwide reached a new high in 2017 to 68.5 million, 2.9 million more than the year before, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said Tuesday. (Xinhua/Bilal Jawich)

June 20,2018-- The number of people forcibly displaced due to wars, other violence, and persecution worldwide reached a new high in 2017 to 68.5 million, 2.9 million more than the year before, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said Tuesday.

It was the fifth straight year of increase and was also the biggest increase UNHCR has seen in a single year.

The displacement was led by the crisis in Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan's war, and the flight into Bangladesh from Myanmar of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees.

Overwhelmingly it is developing countries that are most affected, said UNHCR, asserting that a new global deal on refugees is critical when it released an annual report.

The report was released on the eve of World Refugee Day, which falls on June 20, to commemorate the strength of refugees and to remind governments to work together for them.

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