Refugees and forced displacement in focus

Yesterday, to coincide with World Refugee Day, the UNHCR released a report revealing the vast and terrible extent of the global refugee crisis. In 2015, 65.3 million people were forcibly displaced from their homes. Of this almost inconceivably large figure, 51 percent were under the age of 18. More disturbing still, 98,400 of these children were unaccompanied or separated from their family.

In a year which saw an average of 24 people being displaced from their homes every minute, the largest proportion of refugees unsurprisingly came from the war-ravaged Syrian Arab Republic - 4.9 million in total. The next most common countries of origin were Afghanistan and Somalia with 2.7 and 1.1 million refugees respectively.

While Europe is still reeling from the impact of the huge movement of people through its borders, desperately looking for a safe place to start their lives anew, it was actually Turkey which hosted the largest amount of refugees. At 2.5 million, this was almost one million more than the next largest host, Pakistan.