When we enter 2021, 82.4 million people worldwide will be displaced by conflict or persecution.

According to the latest UNHCR report, 30 million of them are refugees, and the rest are displaced (48 million) or asylum seekers (4.1 million) in their home countries reportNearly half of these forcibly displaced people are children.

55% of refugees come from three countries: Syria, Palestine and Venezuela.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, “everything else stopped, including the economy, but war, conflict, violence, discrimination, and persecution, all the factors that prompted these people to flee, continue,” UNHCR head Philip Grandi Say.

Refugee Journey in 2020

In 2020, 1.27 million people from 64 countries will become refugees. The infographic below shows that these people have gone through a desperate journey despite the additional challenges posed by COVID-19.

Africa accounts for more than one third of the world’s displaced population. By the end of 2020, at least 30.6 million people will be displaced across the African continent.

In 2020, nearly 60,000 refugees fled from Ethiopia to neighboring countries after violent incidents in several areas of East African countries. In November 2020, fighting broke out in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, and more than 1 million people were displaced according to International Organization for Migration.

In the Middle East, Syrian refugees have continued to flee their country’s 10-year war, and nearly 134,000 have been recorded to leave in 2020. Half of them (65,000) fled to neighboring Turkey, which now has the largest refugee community in the world-37,000 people. In the same year, nearly a quarter of Syrian refugees (32,500) arrived in Germany.

In Latin America, nearly 400,000 refugees fled the country after the political and economic crisis in Venezuela. Of these, 139,000 fled to Peru, 80,000 fled to the Dominican Republic, and 60,000 fled to Brazil.

In Asia, the United Nations has recorded at least 29,000 refugees from Myanmar. Almost all of these refugees arrived in neighboring India (17,000) and Bangladesh (12,000).

In Europe, after 44 days of fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh territory, at least 89,000 refugees fled from Azerbaijan to Armenia.

On the other side of the Atlantic, during 2020, the United States received 8,500 refugees from 20 countries. Nearly half of these refugees came from three countries: Venezuela (1,600), El Salvador (1,200) and Guatemala (1,100). This is significantly lower than in 2019, when the country accepted 32,000 refugees.

In 2020, Canada received 7,500 refugees from 21 countries. The largest countries of origin are Nigeria (1,400), Iran (1,200) and Hungary (629). On the other side of the globe, Australia only accepted 956 refugees in 2020, most of them from Iran.

Where is the biggest refugee camp?

The refugee camp is designed to serve as a temporary safe haven to meet the basic needs of refugees. However, many people ended up living in these camps for decades. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Kenya stated: “Many displaced people have lived as refugees in temporary shelters for more than 16 years.”

The infographic below highlights some of the largest refugee camps in the world.

This Kutupalong Camp The refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, is the largest refugee camp in the world. After the Rohingya ethnic minority in Myanmar began to flee from several repressions in Rakhine State, the organization was formed informally in the early 1990s.

In 2017, brutal repression swept across the state, and the camp had to be expanded significantly to a capacity of approximately 800,000 people.

On March 22, 2021, a fire engulfed the neighboring Cox’s Bazar refugee camp. Fifteen people were killed and tens of thousands were left homeless.

A fire broke out in the Rohingya refugee camp in Balukhali, and smoke billowed. It destroyed hundreds of shelters and left thousands homeless. March 22, 2021 [Shafiqur Rahman/AP Photo]

This Dadaab Refugee Complex In Kenya, including three large refugee camps-Hagadera, Dagahaley and Ifo-host more than 200,000 refugees near the border with Somalia. Dadaab was established after the Somali Civil War in 1991 and expanded after a widespread drought and famine in 2011.

This Kakuma refugee camp There are at least 150,000 refugees in northwestern Kenya, most of whom are from South Sudan and Somalia. The camp was established in 1992 after the arrival of thousands of Sudanese children who had fled the civil war.

In March 2021, the Kenyan government announced that it would close the Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps before June 30, 2022.

Kenya said in March that it planned to close two refugee camps hosting more than 400,000 people [Tony Karumba/ AFP]

This Zaatari refugee camp It was established in Jordan in 2012 to host Syrian refugees. Today, it is the largest Syrian refugee camp in the world. The world’s first COVID-19 vaccination center in a refugee camp opened there in February 2021.

70 years of refugee journey

In 1951, the United Nations formulated the 1951 Refugee Convention to protect the rights of refugees in Europe after World War II. In 1967, the convention was expanded to address displacement in other parts of the world.

The infographic below highlights the 70-year refugee journey from 1951 to 2020. In the past ten years, the number of refugees has more than doubled, from 15 million in 2011 to 30 million in 2020.

The plight of Palestine refugees is the longest unresolved refugee issue in the world. On May 14, 1948, the British trusteeship of Palestine expired, triggering the first Arab-Israeli war. The Zionist militia expelled at least 750,000 Palestinians. According to figures compiled by the UN refugee agency, by 1952, the number of Palestine refugees was 867,000. Today, this number is 5.7 million.

Afghanistan has been ravaged by four years of war. From 1979 to 1989, the country was the arena for the last battle of the Cold War because the Soviet army fought a bloody guerrilla war with the Afghan jihadists. For the next ten years, the county has been struggling. Only 12 years after the Soviet withdrawal, Afghanistan will find itself invaded again, this time by the United States. The record for the largest number of refugees in Afghanistan was in 1990, when 6.3 million refugees were reported.

Which countries host the most refugees today?

With 6.7 million Syrians, it is the largest refugee population today, followed by Palestinians (5.7 million) and Venezuelans (4 million). As of 2020, 88% of refugees worldwide come from only 12 countries.

On the receiving end, 65% of the world’s refugees are hosted by only 16 countries. Turkey hosts the most refugees (3.7 million), followed by Jordan (3 million) and Colombia (1.7 million).

In Europe, Germany has approximately 1.2 million refugees, the highest number on the European continent.

According to data from the UN refugee agency, developing countries host 86% of the world’s refugees.