December 18, 2015

This year's global displacement over 60 million

The number of people forcibly displaced worldwide is likely to have "far surpassed" a record 60 million by the end of this year, mainly driven by the Syrian war and other protracted conflicts, the United Nations said.

Al Jazeera America - The estimated figure includes 20.2 million refugees fleeing wars and persecution, the most since 1992, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said in a report.

Nearly 2.5 million asylum seekers have requests pending, with Germany, Russia and the United States receiving the most of the nearly 1 million new claims lodged in the first half of the year, it said.

An estimated 34 million people were internally displaced as of midyear — about 2 million more than at the same time in 2014. Yemen, where civil war erupted in March, reported the most newly uprooted people, with 933,500.

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