The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) recently released a report titled “Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2018”, which sheds the light on forced displacement around the world as a result of oppression, war, violence, or human rights violations. In figures, the report unveiled that yet again, a record high of 70.8 million people were forcibly displaced by end of year 2018, in comparison with 68.5 million a year before and 43.3 million by end of year 2009. This figure represents an annual rise of around 2.3 million in the number of displaced people around the world in 2018. The report highlighted that displacements in the year 2018 were mainly attributed to internal displacements in Ethiopia and to people fleeing Venezuela. To put things into perspective, this number implies that 1 out of 108 people on earth is considered to be displaced, compared to 1 out of 110 people a year earlier and 1 out of 160 people a decade earlier, noting that the bulk of the rise in displacements happened since the year 2012. Furthermore, the surge in the number of displaced people during the last decade can also be attributed to other conflicts across different countries around the world including Syria, Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, South Sudan, and Yemen. The UNHCR has broken down the number of displaced individuals into three main categories, namely internally displaced persons (41.3 million), refugees (25.9 million), and asylum seekers (3.5 million).

The report commented that the majority of refugees around the world comes from Syria (6.7 million), followed by Afghanistan (2.7 million), South Sudan (2.3 million), Myanmar (1.1 million), and Somalia (0.9 million), which altogether accounted for 67% of refugees in the world. More specifically, the UNHCR added that around half of the refugee population in 2018 (48%) is comprised of children below 18 years old, up from 41% in the year 2009. In a similar vein, Colombia remained the country with the highest number of internally displaced (IDPs) population standing at 7.82 million, followed by Syria (6.18 million), the Democratic Republic of Congo (4.35 million), Somalia (2.65 million), and Ethiopia (2.62 million). Other nations with an IDP population exceeding the 1 million mark at the end of 2018 included Nigeria (2.17 million), Yemen (2.14 million), Afghanistan (2.11 million), South Sudan (1.88 million), Sudan (1.86 million), Iraq (1.80 million), and Ukraine (1.50 million).

On the local front, the report pointed-out that Lebanon continued to be the host of the highest number of refugees relative to its population and standing at 1 out of 6 as at end of year 2018, followed by Jordan (1 refugee in 14 inhabitants) and Turkey (1 refugee per 22 inhabitants), among others. In absolute terms, however, Lebanon ranked 7^th globally (in comparison with the 4^th position in the year 2017), hosting 949,666 refugees, down from 998,900 in the previous year. Finally, the report mentioned that Lebanon provided refuge to some 944,000 Syrians and protection to around 4,500 Iraqis.