GENEVA — Nearly 80 million people worldwide were uprooted at the end of 2019 after fleeing wars or persecution, a record figure capping a “tumultuous” decade of displacement, the United Nations said on Thursday. The figure rose by some 9 million from a year earlier and is close to double the 41 million recorded in 2010, despite Covid-19 restrictions slowing down movement, the U.N. refugee agency, U.N.H.C.R., said. Syrians, Venezuelans, Afghans, South Sudanese, and stateless Rohingya from Myanmar top the list of 79.5 million refugees, asylum seekers and internally-displaced, it said in its annual flagship report, Global Trends. “This almost 80 million figure — the highest that U.N.H.C.R. has recorded since these statistics have been systematically collected — is of course a reason for great concern,” said Filippo Grandi, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Source: International New York Times June 18, 2020 20:35 UTC