Refugees on rise, poor countries bear brunt - UN
GENEVA - The number of people forced to flee their homes to escape war or abuse has risen to its highest for 15 years, with four out of five refugees in developing countries, the United Nations has said
In all, there were 43,7 million displaced people worldwide at the end of last year, up from 43,3 million a year before, the UN high commissioner for refugees said last week.
They include 15,4 million refugees who fled across borders - 80 percent of them to nearby developing countries - and 27,5 million uprooted within their own homelands, it said in an annual report. Another 850,000 are asylum seekers who lodged claims.
"Fear about supposed floods of refugees in industrialised countries are being vastly overblown or mistakenly conflated with issues of migration," UN high commissioner for refugees Antonio Guterres said in a statement.
"Meanwhile it's poorer countries that are left having to pick up the burden," added Guterres, a former prime minister of Portugal who heads the Geneva-based agency.
The world's poorest countries host huge refugee populations, both in absolute terms and in relation to their economic size, according to its report, Global Trends 2010.
Slightly more than half of all refugees are children under 18.
Pakistan, Iran and Syria host the most refugees, with 1,9 million, 1,1 million and 1 million respectively, it says.
Afghans form the largest group, three million refugees, including many who left their homeland years ago.
This is followed by Iraqis, Somalis and Congolese, whose countries are also mired in protracted conflicts.
"The causes of displacement are not going away.
"So far this year we have seen conflict in North Africa, Ivory Coast, Syria, Sudan and other places around the world that have produced people fleeing dangerous situations," said Alexander Aleinikoff, deputy high commissioner for refugees.
But there is an "uneven distribution" of the world's displaced, he said.
"Sometimes it seems the loudest objections come from countries that don't shoulder the biggest burden."
Thousands of people fleeing upheavals in North Africa have been heading to Italy on rickety boats in recent months, creating an immigration crisis in Lampedusa, an Italian island situated half way between Tunisia and Sicily.
Italy passed Greece as the main point of entry into the European Union for illegal border migrants in the first quarter of this year, officials said last week.
All asylum claims should be assessed in a fair manner, according to Aleinikoff, a former law professor and senior official in the US Immigration and Naturalisation Service.
Asked about anti-refugee sentiment in some parts of Europe, he replied: "I think that difficult economic times sometimes breed unfortunate populist politics, and cultural differences and religious differences may account for some of that as well."
Sibusy
Umm, ohh God… we acted savagely that day and there still some who still thinkThat that act was justified! African killing Africans – yet we advocate an united Africa
How can there be unification among African if many of us still living in tribal lines? When some of us continue to nourish hate among our own?! Is really refugees and African immigrants the reason of our poverty? Or is it just tribalism eating our heart out?!
Ignorance is our greatest enemy; many fail to see that the ones we kill and hate are our selves
Please citizens, think about your attitude towards Africa
African renascence and if we are ready to live in united state of Africa
Where our citizenship is no longer south African but African!!
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