A new report released by Amnesty International today claims that the number of refugees forcibly displaced from their homes has exceeded 50 million, the highest number recorded since the Second World War. It calls for the international community to fully commit to meeting refugee resettlement needs.
The report, which is called The Global Refugee Crisis: A Conspiracy of Neglect, says that the response of the international community to address the problem of the refugee crisis has been a "shameful failure" and that world leaders have pledged "almost no meaningful international support" to the worsening refugees crises across the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and also on the Mediterranean.
The report places a particular focus on the Syrian crisis and the large number of men, women and children fleeing from clashes between Isis and Kurdish forces.
It says that Syrians are now the largest refugee population in the world, and points out that 95% of those who have fled the civil war are living in just five host countries: Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt.
The report calculates that in Lebanon, there are over 1.2 million refugees meaning that one in five people living in the country is a Syrian refugee. There are 627,287 Syrian refugees in Jordan as well as 13,800 Palestinian refugees also from Syria. The report says that 80% of Syrians in Jordan now living below the poverty line. Both countries are now struggling.
Khairunissa Dhala, refugee and migrant rights researcher at Amnesty International spoke to Newsweek from Lebanon about the worsening conditions. She explained that the countries are overwhelmed and due to excessive numbers "the borders of Jordan and Lebanon are now essentially closed".
Dhala emphasised that it is the world's wealthiest countries, which include the UK, France, Australia, the US, and Canada who need to provide "meaningful numbers of resettlement places," and specified that these countries should provide at least one million places for refugees over the next four years.
She also pointed out that the report is not not calling for money alone. "It is calling for a global summit, which would bring together the international community to come up with a plan to adequately meet the humanitarian funds and come up with durable solutions to the refugee problem", she said.
"EU countries need to provide safe and legal routes for people to reach their countries, otherwise there will be more meaningless loss of life," she concluded.
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