World Refugee Day 2016

World Refugee Day (WRD) is commemorated annually on June 20th. The official WRD page is on the UNHCR web site; visit to learn more about the agency's #WithRefugees campaign. UNHCR also publishes its Global Trends report on WRD. This year's edition reports the following:

"Global forced displacement has increased in 2015, with record-high numbers. By the end of the year, 65.3 million individuals were forcibly displaced worldwide as a result of persecution, conflict, generalized violence, or human rights violations. This is 5.8 million more than the previous year (59.5 million)."

The total figure is broken down as follows:
- 21.3 million persons were refugees (16.1 million under UNHCR’s mandate + 5.2 million Palestinian refugees registered by UNRWA)
- 40.8 million internally displaced persons
- 3.2 million asylum-seekers

For more background and a related video, check out the accompanying press release. See also a video summary of the report prepared by IRIN.

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