At least 37 thousand people are forced to leave their homes in the world every day!

The Dhaka Times Desk A UN report revealed that more than 70 million people were forced to leave their homes in 2018 to escape war, violence and murder. As such, at least 37 thousand people are forced to leave their homes in the world every day!

According to UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, the number of homeless people was the highest in the past 70 years.

According to the annual Global Trends Report recently released by the Refugee Agency, 7.8 million people were forced to leave their homes in 2018, which is about 2.3 million more than the previous year. This is double the number of 20 years ago. The agency also said the actual number of homeless people could be higher. The reason is that the number of homeless people in the Venezuela crisis is partially covered in this report. According to data from countries hosting Venezuelan refugees, nearly 4 million people have been forced to leave their country.

The report also revealed a proportional relationship with the growth rate of the population of the world. According to the list compiled after the 1951 Refugee Convention, the highest number of people lost their homes until then in 1992. The rate of deforestation was 3.7 percent per 1,000 people that year. In 2018, it stood at 9.3 percent.

The report of the United Nations has classified the homeless into 3 categories. One category consists of refugees who have fled their country to escape war, killing or violence. In 2018, the number of such refugees stood at 2.59 million, which is 5 million more than in 2017. There are 5.5 million refugees in Palestine alone.

In the second category, there are those political asylum seekers, who have left their country to seek international protection and have taken refuge in another country, but have not yet been recognized as refugees. Their number is 35 lakh.

Internally displaced persons are placed in the third category. Although they are forced to leave their homes, they are staying in their respective countries. Around the world this number is about 4 crore 13 lakh.

Two-thirds of the world's refugees are citizens of Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Myanmar and Somalia. Syrian refugees are the most among them. Out of these 6.7 million refugees, only 92,400 refugees were resettled in 2018, which is essentially less than 7 percent. On the other hand, Afghanistan has the second highest number of refugees. Their number is about 27 lakh.

Filippo Grandi, the High Commissioner of the United Nations Refugee Agency, said that the statistics confirmed that the number of people fleeing war, killings and violence is increasing day by day.

Since 2009, the number of homeless is increasing every year. In 2009, the number of homeless people was 4 crore 33 lakh. From 2012 to 2015, the Syrian crisis saw the largest increase in refugees. Moreover, violence in countries like Iraq and Yemen in the Middle East, DR Congo and South Sudan in sub-Saharan Africa have also contributed to the increase in this number, the report said.

On the other hand, at the end of 2017, millions of Rohingyas took refuge in Bangladesh due to violence in Myanmar, which is about 1.2 million. The number of refugees among Ethiopians is about 1.5 million. 98 percent of them are internally displaced, which is more than double the previous number. The root cause of this is ethnic violence. The same problem of the refugees who took refuge in Bangladesh is ethnic. Rohingyas have to be expelled only because of religion.