UNHCR: 7.6m people displaced in 2012

The UN Refuge Agency has said 7.6 million people became newly displaced during 2012 and 23 thousand people had to leave their houses daily. UNHCR's annual Global Trends report, released on Wednesday, covers displacement that occurred during 2012. The report shows that the number of displaced people has peaked in the last 18 years in 2012, more than 45.2 million people were in situations of displacement during 2012. During 2012 some 7.6 million people became newly displaced, 1.1 million as refugees and 6.5 million as internally displaced people. 23,000 people had to leave their houses every day for security reasons. By end 2012, the population under UNHCR’s responsibility was 35.8 million persons, 17.7 million within the countries they live and 10.5 million in the countries they sought refuge in. During 2012, UNHCR identified more than 3.34 million stateless persons in 72 countries, and estimated the total number of stateless persons worldwide at more than 10 million people. The global number of refugees under UNHCR’s mandate was estimated at 10.5 million at the end of 2012. Outflows of more than 1.1 million refugees, mainly from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Somalia, Sudan, and the Syrian Arab Republic. 22 countries admitted 88,600 refugees for resettlement during 2012 (with or without UNHCR’s assistance). The United States of America received the highest number (66,300). Afghanistan remained the world's top producer of refugees, a position it has held for 32 years. On average, one out of every four refugees worldwide is Afghan, with 95 percent located in Pakistan or Iran. Somalia, the world's second largest refugee-producing nation during 2012. Iraqis were the third largest refugee group (746,700 persons), followed by Syrians (471,400). On average, 50 per cent of all persons of concern were children under the age of 18, including 13 per cent under the age of five. Forty-six per cent of the population were adults between the ages of 18 and 59 years, while 4 per cent were people of 60 years or more. 21,300 asylum applications were lodged by unaccompanied or separated children in 72 countries in 2012 Conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic forced somesome 647,000 people to seek refuge in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and other countries in the region. 308,000 Syrian refugees arrived in Turkey in 2012 and some 68,600 of them returned spontaneously to their country in the same year, according to the report. Turkey ranked 10th in accepting the highest number of refugees in the world.