The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) recently released a report titled “Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2021”, which sheds light on forced displacement around the world as result of oppression, war, violence or human rights violations. In figures, the report unveiled that yet again a record high of 89.3 million people were forcibly displaced in 2021, in comparison with 82.4 million a year before, and more than double the figure reported in 2012 (42.7 million). To put things into perspective, this number implies that 1 out of 88 people on earth is considered to be displaced compared to 1 out of 95 inhabitants a year earlier and 1 out of 167 people in the year 2012. The UNHCR has broken down the number of displaced individuals into three main categories namely, internally displaced persons (53.2 million; 62.66%), refugees (27.1 million; 31.92%) and asylum seekers (4.6 million; 5.42%). 

The report commented that the majority of refugees around the world comes from Syria (6.8 million) followed by Venezuela (4.6 million), Afghanistan (2.7 million), South Sudan (2.4 million) and Myanmar (1.2 million). In a similar vein, Syria recorded the highest number of internally displaced (IDPs) population standing at 6.9 million, followed by Colombia (6.8 million), the Democratic Republic of Congo (5.4 million), Yemen (4.3 million), Ethiopia (3.6 million) and Afghanistan (3.5 million). Other nations with an IDP population exceeding the 1 million mark at the end of the year 2021 included Nigeria (~3.2 million), Sudan (~3.1 million), Somalia (~2.9 million) and South Sudan (~2.1 million).

On the local front, the report pointed-out that Lebanon emerged as the host of the 2^nd highest number of refugees (when excluding Palestinian refugees) relative to its population and standing at 1 out of 8 as at end of year 2021, trailing Aruba (1 refugee in 6 inhabitants), and followed by Curacao (1 refugee in 10 inhabitants), Jordan (1 refugee in 14 inhabitants) and Türkiye (1 refugee per 23 inhabitants) among others. In absolute terms, however, Lebanon ranked 8^th globally (down by two positions in comparison with the previous year) in terms of number of refugees in 2021, hosting 845,900 refugees, down from 870,418 in the previous year. This drop in the number of refugees in Lebanon may be explained by the tough living conditions the country is facing namely the economic stalemate, unprecedented depreciation of the pound and dramatic drop in purchasing power making it very difficult for refugees to adapt to the situation.