A record 60 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide due to wars, persecution and conflict by 2014, an average of 42,500 individuals per day last year, enough to form the world's 24th largest country, the UN said today.
The figure marked a rise of 8.3 million persons over the previous year, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in new data as it released its annual 'Global Trends Report: World at War'.
India as a country of origin had 10,433 refugees and 16,709 asylum seekers with pending cases in 2014; and 1,99,937 refugees and 5,074 pending cases of asylum seekers as country of asylum for the same year.
Globally, one in every 122 humans is now either a refugee, internally displaced, or seeking asylum. If this were the population of a country, it would be the world's 24th biggest, the report said.
Every day last year on average 42,500 people became refugees, asylum seekers, or internally displaced, a four-fold increase in just four years.
Of the 59.5 million people forcibly displaced worldwide as a result of persecution, conflict, generalised violence, or human rights violations by last year end, 19.5 million were refugees, 38.2 million were internally displaced persons (IDPs) and 1.8 million were asylum-seekers.
Of these 19.5 million refugees, around 5.1 million are Palestinians while Syrians, Somalis and Afghans made for more than half the remaining 14.4 million refugees, UNHCR said.
And if that was not disturbing enough - over half the world's refugees are children.
Worldwide displacement was at the highest level ever recorded, it said, adding that the number of people forcibly displaced at the end of 2014 had risen to a staggering 59.5 million compared to 51.2 million a year earlier and 37.5 million a decade ago.
The increase represents the biggest leap ever seen in a single year. Moreover, the report said the situation was likely to worsen still further.
"We are witnessing a paradigm change, an unchecked slide into an era in which the scale of global forced displacement as well as the response required is now clearly dwarfing anything seen before," said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres in a statement.
The largest source country for refugees last year was Syria (3.88 million) followed by Afghanistan (2.59 million), and Somalia (1.11 million). The three countries made for 53 per cent of refugees worldwide.
