| Conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan Drive Up World Refugee Numbers |
By Sonja Pace
London
17 June 2008
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The U.N. refugee agency says the number of people fleeing violence and
repression worldwide has risen to 11.4 million, largely due to the
conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. VOA's Sonja Pace reports from
London on UNHCR's status report for 2007.
 | | An Afghan girl carries her infant sibling in Iran's Sistan Baluchistan province |
Launching the report,
the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, said that
for the second year in a row the number of people fleeing their
countries and displaced from their homes is on the rise.
"We
have today 11.4 million refugees worldwide, but we have 26 million
people displaced within the borders of their own countries," he said.
Guterres
says conflicts are largely to blame. Refugees from Iraq and
Afghanistan alone make up half the world's total. The 11.4 million
tally does not include the millions of Palestinians living as refugees
in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world.
Guterres describes a band of conflict and instability that includes mostly Muslim countries.
"Now,
together with the Palestinians more than half of the group of refugees
are concentrated in the same area," he said. "That area starts in
Afghanistan, it includes Iraq, Palestine, Sudan, Chad and Somalia. And
this is an area of great concern for us all and I can only ask the
international community to be more and more involved together, acting
together to make sure that these conflicts find an end."
 | | Darfurian refugees chidren play in the Sudanese refugees camp run by the NGO 'Eastern Chad' in Gaga, near the border with Darfur (File) |
While
Afghanistan, Iraq and the Darfur region of Sudan are highly publicized
hotspots, UNHCR's Guterres says many other refugees are created by
lesser known conflicts and hardships - often forgotten by the
international community.
"And looking only at one continent
Africa, we have been having since the beginning of the year, with
people crossing their borders in big numbers, in thousands we are
having new arrivals of Darfurians in Chad and Central African Republic,
of Chadians in Cameroon, of Central African Republicans in Chad and in
Cameroon, of Eritreans in Sudan and in Ethiopia, of Somalis in Yemen,
in Kenya, in Djibouti, we have Kenyans crossing the border into Uganda
and we are now witnessing the worsening situation in Zimbabwe," he
said. "Now, this demonstrates a trend that represents a multiplication
of crises, with more and more people on the move."
The U.N.
agency says global refugee numbers had fallen for five years before
rising again in 2006 and 2007. While conflicts are largely to blame,
UNHCR says climate change, the rise in energy and food prices and
ensuing poverty are also factors.
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