More than two million refugees will have to be resettled next year

More than two million refugees who have been unable to return home or stay in their host country due to insecurity or lack of space will be relocated to third countries in 2023, the United Nations said on Tuesday (June 21st).

This is a 36% jump compared to this year’s needs, which are estimated at 1.47 million people, said Shabia Mantou, spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), when presenting the statistics. This growth is especially attributableThe humanitarian consequences of the epidemic նոր the emergence of new deportation situations over the past year“, – She said:

Seats are rare

there »resettlementinvolves the relocation of refugees from another country of asylum, which has agreed to accept them and eventually grant them permanent residence. For the seventh year in a row, Syrian refugees (approximately 777,800 refugees in need of resettlement) are among those in need of resettlement, followed by refugees from Afghanistan (274,000), the Democratic Republic of Congo (190,400) and South Sudan (117,600). (more than 114,000). Many in Burma are from the Rohingya Muslim minority and have no citizenship.

The resettlement process offers tens of thousands of refugees each year, providing a sustainable solution. However, the places offered by the countries are rare, their number is mostly insufficient. Closing borders and travel restrictions in 2020 due to the Covid epidemic have in many cases led to a temporary halt to relocation to resettlement countries, bringing refugee resettlement to a record low of just 22,800 that year.

The number of resettled refugees doubled last year to 39,266. But the solutions found are far below the needs estimated at more than 1.44 million seats last year. Only a few countries are participating in UNHCR’s resettlement program. The major resettlement countries in the world are the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and the Nordic countries.