• Number of refugees worldwide jumps 1.2m in just six months
• Record 114m people displaced globally by end of September

ISLAMABAD: The number of Afghan refugees globally increased from 5.7 million to 6.1 million, mostly reflecting new population estimates reported by the Pakistan government, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

Together, Iran (3.4m) and Pakistan (2.1m) hosted 90 per cent of all Afghan refugees, UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, said in a new report.

“By the end of June, there were an estimated 35.8m refugees globally, most of whom have been in displacement for many years,” it said in its Mid-Year Trends Report, which analyses forced displacement during the first six months of 2023.

This figure has doubled within seven years. The global total includes 5.5m people in refugee-like situations and 5.3m other people in need of international protection.

Similarly, the number of people displaced by war, persecution, violence and human rights violations globally jumped from 108.4m at the end of last year to 110m people by the end of June 2023, the UNHCR said.

It said the number is estimated to have exceeded 114m by the end of September — a record figure.

The main drivers in the first half of 2023 were the conflicts in Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar and the Democratic Republic of Congo; a prolonged humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan; and a combination of drought, floods and insecurity in Somalia, the UNHCR said in a statement.

“The world’s focus now is — rightly — on the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. But globally, far too many conflicts are proliferating or escalating, shattering innocent lives and uprooting people,” said UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi.

He blamed the international community’s inability to solve or prevent conflicts and urged better cooperation to end violence and allow displaced people to return home.

The UNHCR report said international protection was granted to almost 1.2m people during the half-year, as 370,800 people received a positive decision on their individual asylum claim, 309,900 were recognised on a group basis and 500,700 were granted temporary protection.

Globally, 87pc of all refugees originated from just 10 countries at mid-year, consistent with 2022. Just over half of refugees worldwide are Afghan, Syrian or Ukrainian.

The number of Afghan refugees increased from 5.7m to 6.1m. This increase primarily reflects new population estimates reported by the Pakistan government, accounting for the arrival of Afghans in the country since the Taliban takeover in August 2021.

Low-income countries continued to host a disproportionately large share of the world’s displaced people, both in terms of their population size and the resources available to them. These countries represented 9pc of the global population and only 0.4pc of the global gross domestic product, yet they hosted 16pc refugees.

The countries hosting the most refugees are Iran and Turkiye at 3.4 m each; Germany and Colombia with 2.5m each; and Pakistan with 2.1m.

By June 2023, an estimated 23.8m refugees and other people in need of international protection were in a protracted situation. There were 59 protracted situations in 37 different host countries.

In the first six months of 2023, the number of individual asylum applications registered by states or UNHCR was 1.7m. Of these, 1.6m were new asylum applications and 162,400 were repeat or appeal applications for review by judicial and administrative appellate bodies.

Compared to the first six months of the previous year, new individual applications increased by more than 50pc, with increases of more than 10pc registered in almost 90 countries, UNHCR said.

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2023