Damascus (AsiaNews/Agencies) - The number of displaced persons due to conflicts and crises throughout the world has passed the 50 million threshold, for the first time since World War II. Thus stated a report published by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
In presenting the report, High Commissioner Antonio Guterres stated: "About 51.2 million people have been uprooted, 6 million more than the 45.2 million recorded at the end of 2012. We are facing a huge increase in the number of internally displaced persons". He then added that there are 2.5 million new Syrian refugees, and that there are 6.5 million internally displaced people in Syria since the start of the conflict.
There were new population movements in Africa as well last year , particularly in central and southern Sudan. Guterres lists the two main causes of this phenomenon: "On the one hand, the multiplication of new crises that lead people to leave their homes, and on the other hand, the persistence of old crises that don't seem to want to die".
He also urged the international community "to overcome disagreements and find solutions to ongoing conflicts in southern Sudan, Syria, the Central African Republic and wherever crises are present".
To give an idea of the magnitude of the phenomenon Guterres concluded by saying: "At present in countries such as Colombia, Spain, South Africa and South Korea, the number displaced is equal to the number of people who have remained in their respective countries".