NEW DELHI: Till now, conflicts including the ongoing one in Ukraine, violence, human rights violations and persecution have forced more than 100 million people to flee their homes and hearth, amounting to more than or more than 1 per cent of the world’s population, a UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) release said on Monday.
On the same day, a major report released by SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) also warned that the world is failing to prepare for new complex and unpredictable risks to peace as environmental and security crises converge and intensify. SIPRI is among the world’s leading think-tanks on issues of conflict and the weapons trade.
UNHCR Report
The UNHCR report highlighted the fact that this is for the first time in recorded history that the total number of those displaced due has crossed the 100 million mark. If the number of displaced people across the world were to make a country, it would have been equal to the population of Egypt, the world’s 14th most populous country and the numbers of those displaced are only increasing.
Said Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said: “One hundred million is a stark figure - sobering and alarming in equal measure. It’s a record that should never have been set. This must serve as a wake-up call to resolve and prevent destructive conflicts, end persecution, and address the underlying causes that force innocent people to flee their homes.”
Conflicts in Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Myanmar, Nigeria, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo had pushed the numbers of those displaced towards 90 million by 2021-end, the UNHCR said.
SIPRI Report
The SIPRI report highlighted that the world is being drawn into “a black hole of deepening twin crises in security and the environment” even as the war in Europe continues along with the palpable aftershocks of the Covid-19 pandemic. On security, it said that there is an increase in the incidence of conflict and the number of dead and displaced people.
There are more conflicts around the world, more displaced people and higher expenditure on arms than a decade ago. SIPRI classified the environmental manifestations of decline as extreme weather, rising seas, constraints on water availability, the decline in mammals and pollinating insects, plastic pollution, dying coral reefs and shrinking forests.
“In 2010, the number of state-based armed conflicts documented around the world stood at around 30… Between 2010 and 2020, the number nearly doubled (to 56), as did the number of conflict deaths. This doubling can also be seen in the numbers of refugees and other forcibly displaced people, which rose from 41 million in 2010 to 82.4 million in 2020,” the SIPRI report stated.
Interestingly, SIPRI claimed that most armed conflicts have taken place within rather than between countries although “outside forces are intimately involved in many of the most lethal situations, with four conflicts Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen—partially shaped by external powers”.
