Context: Recently,the UN said that Despite the coronavirus pandemic, the number of people fleeing war and persecution continued rising last year, with global displacement climbing to over 82 million -- double the figure a decade ago.

Key highlights

• A fresh report from the UN refugee agency showed global displacement figures swelled by around three million in 2020 after an already record-breaking year in 2019, leaving a full one percent of humanity uprooted and displaced.
• The report highlighted how drawn-out crises like those in Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen were continuing to force people to flee, while eruptions of violence in places like Ethiopia and Mozambique were causing surging displacement.
• The numbers rose for the ninth straight year was all the more devastating because COVID-19 restrictions had been expected to limit displacement.
• During the pandemic, factors like wars and conflict and violence and discrimination and persecution has pushed these people to flee.

By the end of 2020, a record 82.4 million people were living as refugees or asylum seekers, or in so-called internal displacement within their own countries, up from some 40 million in 2011.

• More than two thirds of all people who fled abroad came from just five countries:- Syria (6.7 million); Venezuela (4.0 million); Afghanistan (2.6 million); South Sudan (2.2 million) and Myanmar (1.1 million)
• Some 26.4 million people were living as refugees at the end of 2020, including 5.7 million Palestinians.
• Some 3.9 million Venezuelans were also displaced beyond their borders without being considered refugees, while 4.1 million people were registered worldwide as asylum seekers.

A full 42 % of the world’s displaced are girls and boys under the age of 18.

• A number of new crises have also sparked significant displacement pointing to Ethiopia’s violence-hit Tigray region, which saw an exodus into Sudan of over 54,000 people in the final months of 2020 alone.
• Hundreds of thousands of people also escaped deadly jihadist violence in northern Mozambique.
• Hundreds of thousands more were freshly displaced in Africa’s restive Sahel region.

The vast majority of the world’s refugees are hosted in countries neighbouring crisis areas, mainly in poorer parts of the world.

• Turkey remained the host of the world’s largest refugee population totalling some 3.7 million, followed by Colombia with 1.7 million.
• Pakistan and Uganda with 1.4 million each and Germany with 1.2 million.
• Over the course of 2020, only around 3.2 million IDPs and just 251,000 refugees returned to their homes, marking drops of 40 and 21 % respectively from 2019.
• Only 34,400 vulnerable refugees were resettled in third countries last year — the lowest level in 20 years.

Road Ahead

• "Solutions require global leaders and those with influence to put aside their differences, end an egoistic approach to politics, and instead focus on preventing and solving conflict and ensuring respect for human rights,".