Some 14.4 million people around the world were forced from their homes in 2014, the highest number of newly displaced people in 20 years.
The main countries refugees were fleeing from and to shifted greatly last year, according to a new report by the United Nations.
The crisis in Syria hugely affected the refugee population’s flow in 2014. Syria overtook Afghanistan as the world’s top source of refugees after Afghanistan was the primary source for more than three straight decades.
And the deterioration in Syria has been rapid: Just three years ago, Syria wasn’t even on the list of the top-30 source countries. Now, almost one out of every four refugees is Syrian, according to the UN report.
The countries that took in the most displaced people in 2014 were Turkey, Pakistan, Lebanon, and Iran.
Those four countries hosted more than 5.2 million refugees in 2014, or 36 percent of all global refugees. Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt took in the highest number of Syrians.
As for the countries that received the most applications for asylum, Russia topped the list with 274,700 in 2014. Around 99 percent of these claims were by Ukrainians fleeing the war in the eastern part of their country.
Germany had the second highest number of asylum applications, with 173,100. That number represents a nine-fold increase for the country from just seven years ago. Continue reading
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