By 2100, Refugees Would Be the Most Populous Country on Earth
June 29, 2017
Poverty and deadly wars are the major drivers of displacement.
The UN Refugee Agency has announced the new figures for the world’s displaced: 65.9 million. That means that 65.9 million human beings live as refugees, asylum seekers or as internally displaced people. If the refugees formed a country, it would be the 21st largest state in the world, just after Thailand (68.2 million) and just ahead of the United Kingdom (65.5 million). But unlike these other states, refugees have few political rights and no real representation in the institutions of the world.
The head of the UN Refugee Agency, Filippo Grandi, recently said that most of the displacement comes as a result of war. “The world seems to have become unable to make peace,” Grandi said. “So you see old conflicts that continue to linger, and new conflicts erupting, and both produce displacement. Forced displacement is a symbol of wars that never end.”
