Record 65 Million Displaced by Global Conflicts, U.N. Says - nytimes

More people are on the run than ever before in recorded history, the United Nations said in a report released Monday.

They include those fleeing marauders in South Sudan, drug gangs in Central America, and the Islamic State in the Iraqi cities of Mosul andFalluja. While most are displaced within their own countries, an unprecedented number are seeking political asylum in the world’s rich countries. Nearly 100,000 are children who have attempted the journey alone.

All told, the number of people displaced by conflict is estimated to exceed 65 million, more than the population of Britain.

The new figures, part of the United Nations refugee agency’s Global Trends Report, come as hostility is surging toward migrants and refugees in the Western countries where they are seeking sanctuary and relief.

The European Union has shown signs of fracturing over how to handle the influx of people crossing the Mediterranean Sea.

The United Nations high commissioner for refugees, Filippo Grandi,expressed alarm on Sunday about what he described as a “climate of xenophobia that is very worrying in today’s Europe.”

On Saturday, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, denounced what he called “border closures, barriers and bigotry” during a visit to Lesbos, the Greek island where thousands of asylum seekers have arrived, mainly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr. Ban implored European leaders to stop treating refugees as criminals.

The annual report by the United Nations refugee agency found that in 2015, 65.3 million people remained forcibly displaced from their homes by war and persecution. Some had been displaced for decades because of protracted conflicts in countries like Afghanistan and Colombia.

Half of all refugee children are out of school, the report said, often because schools in their host countries are stretched beyond capacity.

In some ways the latest refugee numbers amount to a report card on the failure of the world’s most powerful leaders to end wars. From Syria to Afghanistan to the Democratic Republic of Congo, conflicts last longer, hospitals are bombed in brazen violation of humanitarian law, and aid workers complain bitterly that they are overwhelmed. - Read More 

Record 65 Million Displaced by Global Conflicts, UN Says