UN: conflicts, violence, and persecution have forced over two million people to flee as refugees this year.

Oct 2, 2017 

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi says conflicts, violence, and persecution across the world, including in Myanmar, South Sudan and Syria, have forced over two million people to flee as refugees this year.

Speaking at the UNHCR’s annual Executive Committee meeting in the Swiss city of Geneva on Monday, Grandi called for more international cooperation and support to address the crisis.

“The despair of millions of men, women, and children driven from their homes, cast adrift into a life of uncertainty, is a stain on our collective conscience,” he said.

The UN refugee chief also pointed to the dire needs of more than half a million persecuted Rohingya Muslims who have fled into Bangladesh from Myanmar’s Rakhine state since August 25.

During the same period, 50,000 refugees had flooded out of South Sudan and another 18,000 had fled clashes in the Central African Republic, the UN official pointed out.  

The ongoing foreign-backed militancy across Syria also continues to account for the world's largest number of forcibly displaced people.

The head of the UN refugee agency went on to say that resettlement was vital to addressing the growing refugee problem.

"Close to 1.2 million refugees need resettling globally," he said, voicing "major concern that fewer than 100,000 resettlement places are expected to be available this year, a drop of 43 percent from 2016."     Press Tv