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The war in Eastern Europe will deepen food problems worldwide and, as a consequence, will escalate the number of displaced people to over 100 million, the UN Refugee Agency reported in its annual report. The document criticizes the response of the most developed countries to the crisis and accuses them of treating Ukrainian migrants differently compared to those from other regions.
This Thursday, June 16, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) exhibited in its annual global trends report that the food crisis generated as a result of the war between Russia and Ukraine will deepen the number of displaced people and refugees worldwide, exceeding the stark figure of 100 million people.
Food insecurity as a result of the Russian invasion includes shortages of cereals and fertilizers. “The impact, if this is not resolved quickly, would be devastating. It already is,” said High Commissioner Filippo Grandi.
By the end of 2021, the number of civilians had reached 89.3 million, which was already a record in this area. However, the entity stated that the 100 million have already been exceeded by the Ukrainian exodus and internal displacement.
However, the outbreak of war in Eastern Europe is not the only reason that comes close to intensifying migratory imbalances, which has already doubled compared to the previous decade.
Bad governments, nations that violate human rights or are perpetrated by violence, and the climate crisis fueled the growth of displaced people in 2021 and will continue in 2022.
“If we don’t take action to deal with these figures out of desperation and find lasting solutions, we will continue to break new and terrible records,” Grandi warned at the press conference where he presented the document.
Unless we learn again how to make peace, the number of people #ForcedToFlee their homes by war, persecution and violence will continue to grow.
We reached 89 million at the end of 2021 and we have gone over 100 million following the war in Ukraine.https://t.co/lYSmesGNel
— Filippo Grandi (@FilippoGrandi) June 16, 2022
UNHCR explained that children are the main victims of exoduses and represent around 30% of the refugee population and 42% of those who suffer internal displacement.
“Either the international community comes together to take action to address this human tragedy, resolve conflicts and find lasting solutions or this terrible trend will continue,” he said.
The main groups of refugees arrive from Syria (6.8 million), Ukraine (5 million), Venezuela (4.6) and Afghanistan (2.7). While Turkey leads the host sites, hosting 3.8 million, most of them Syrians.
The differential treatment of European powers, in the sights of UNHCR
In this sense, the world powers are conspicuous by their absence. The first, Germany, recently appeared in fifth place, behind less developed nations such as Colombia, Uganda and Pakistan.
On this, Grandi hammered on the differentiation that European countries have made with refugees from Ukraine compared to those from other places. The refugee chief recalled when the leaders of the powers expressed that their territories “were full.”
It also marked the differences in terms of the speed of economic responses to address the Ukrainian crisis, but the same did not happen for other cases. “There can be no inequity in the response,” he said.
This report was published on the eve of World Refugee Day on June 20 and in a context where the British Government wanted to make a controversial attempt to divert asylum seekers to Rwanda. This would be “an error” and would set “catastrophic precedents,” Grandi described.
With EFE and AFP
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