UNHCR: Asylum claims from conflict zones rise in first half 2014
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Friday said in a report that the number of people seeking refugee status in industrialized countries continued to climb in the first half of 2014, driven by the wars in Syria and Iraq as well as conflict and instability in countries such as Afghanistan and Eritrea.
UNHCR’s new asylum trends report, based on data received from 44 governments in Europe, North America and parts of the Asia-Pacific, stated 330,700 people asked for refugee status in these 44 countries between the start of January and the end of June.
The figure marked a rise of 24 percent from the same period a year earlier, and slightly higher than in the second half of last year (328,100 claims).
The report warned that 2014 could produce as many as 700,000 claims, which would make it the highest level in industrialized countries in 20 years and a level not seen since the 1990s conflict in former Yugoslavia.
“We are clearly into an era of growing conflict,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said in a statement.
He said the international community needs to prepare their populations for the reality that in the absence of solutions to conflict more and more people are going to need refuge and care in the coming months and years.
“Unfortunately, it is not clear that the resources and the access to asylum will be available to help them,” he added.
Of the net overall increase in new claims shown in the report, more than two thirds of these were made in just six countries, which are Germany, the U.S., France, Sweden, Turkey and Italy.
Overall, Syria was the main country of origin of people seeking asylum with a more than two-fold increase (48,400 claims compared to 18,900 in the same period in 2013). Iraq, where hundreds of thousands of people have become newly displaced this year, produced 21,300 asylum applications, followed by Afghanistan (19,300) and Eritrea (18,900). /End/