Unpacking the numbers behind the refugee struggle

UNHCR reports around 70.8 million forcibly displaced people worldwide, in its annual Global Trends Study. An unparalleled number constituting around 1% of the world’s entire population.

This record figure includes an internally displaced population of around 41.3 million, nearly 25.9 million refugees and an approximate number of 3.5 million asylum seekers. Despite the challenges of reporting high-quality data on refugees, UNHCR is confident that the number of people who are forcibly displaced globally is indeed at a record high since the end of World War Two.  With millions of stateless people being denied a nationality and access to basic rights such as education, healthcare, employment and freedom of movement, 2019 carves out another challenge in the face of misery and despair. 

The Global Peace Index has recorded declining levels of peace; ninety-two countries have seen decreasing trends while only seventy-one countries have seen improved levels. The numbers speak a forbidding tale, of countries that were once the most nonviolent states now facing declining peace levels due to increased conflict and resistance. 

We live in a world where nearly 1 person is forcibly displaced every two seconds. These individuals have fought long and hard, eventually to succumb to the pressures and pains of war, violence and persecution in their native regions. These individuals are living the realities we read about on a daily basis. May it be the war in Syria, the bloodshed in South Sudan, the conflict in Yemen or the struggles in Myanmar, we cannot help but fathom what life would be like for the victims of this carnage.

The victims are pushed into grinding conditions of abject poverty, held captives to the will of the elite of the nations they migrate to. “They are routinely denounced and cast as criminals, responsible for all of society’s ills, by governments and political parties of all stripes”. They are put at the mercy of blatant racism emanating from the right-wing circles. They are ridiculed and bashed in the media, belittled and reproached by the masses. Apart from facing verbal and emotional distraught, the refugees are physically targeted through widespread and wanton acts of terror. Apart from persecution by others, refugees suffer an internal identity battle due to their constant state of limbo. Their failure to find a permanent abode forces them to live a nomadic lifestyle. They hence lack certainty and faith in things that many of us so easily take for granted.

The increasing ‘migrant problem’ has justified the strengthening of border controls through creation of Fortress Europe, setting quotas for countries to house refugees and limiting efforts to relocate refugees settled in their regions. The problem is aggravated due to lack of aid offered by countries with abundant resources as the gap between demand and supply continues to widen: “By the start of December 2018, only 57 per cent of the UN and its 2018 humanitarian partners’ emergency appeal was covered. According to the emergency appeal for 2019, 132 million people will need humanitarian aid in the coming year”. In addition to this, throwing in words like crises gives rise to negatively charged sentiments. In our struggles to mobilise humanitarian will and gather aid and support, we have inadvertently made the problem seem impossible to solve.

Amongst the 70.8 million, the internally displaced persons pose the greatest concern. They constitute the more vulnerable and less helped populace than the refugees that cross borders. Most of the growth in world displacement figures comes from these individuals. A crisis is hence of internal displacement rather than of a global refugee one. This prolonged displacement is essentially a failing of a nation’s own governance. This failing then causes a dramatic ripple effect across its own as well as the neighboring regions. 

With a global population of around 7.7 billion people, an increase of around 1.1 million should not be considered a global crisis. However, flags are raised because most of these refugees flee to an already saturated Europe, giving the impression that a crisis is emerging at a global scale. International refugee efforts are geared towards short-term accommodations rather than long term rehabilitations. A more sustainable solution for refugees needs to be sought if one hopes for the numbers to go down in the future.