Ukraine is among leaders in number of internally displaced persons

Nearly 41 million people throughout the world are displaced in their own countries. The largest number of internally displaced people is in Syria, Colombia and Iraq. Ukraine ranks eighth in the number of immigrants.

This is stated in the report of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and the NRC’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), Deutsche Welle reports.

According to the organizations, 40.8 million people have currently fled their homes because of conflicts in search of a safe place to live.

“This is the highest figure ever recorded,” said Jan Egeland, the Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council. 38 million internally displaced persons were registered last year.

The biggest number of the displaced persons is in Colombia – 6.6 million.

During 2015, Yemen, Syria and Iraq registered more than 4.6 million new immigrants. In general, the number of IDPs throughout the world increased by 8.6 million in last year.

The greatest increase in IDPs was spotted last year in Yemen, where the coalition led by Saudi Arabia conducted military campaign against the Shi’ite rebels. 2.2 million new internally displaced persons were registered in Yemen in 2015. 1.3 million new immigrants were recorded in Syria, and 1.1 million IDPs were registered in Iraq, where the fight against the Islamic State was waged.

Ukraine entered the list of countries with the largest number of immigrants outside of the Middle East. According to the organizations, 942,000 people received the status of internally displaced persons because of the conflict in eastern Ukraine during 2015. A total of 1.7 million internally displaced persons have been registered in Ukraine.

“While richer, stable countries have been scheming to keep asylum seekers out of their borders and deny them protection, millions remain trapped in their own countries with death staring them just around the corner,” said Carsten Hansen, NRC’s regional director in the Middle East.

According to the organizations, of the ten countries with the highest number of people internally displaced by conflict, five – Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, South Sudan and Sudan – have been on the list every year since 2003.