Now the number of people fleeing wars,
violence, or civil disorder rose again
last year, even as the coronavirus
pandemic brought much of the world
to a standstill.
By the end of 2020, there were
82.4 million people who were forcibly
displaced from their homes.
That's according to the United Nations Refugee Agency
and as you can see that is double
the number that it was a decade ago.
More than two-thirds of those
officially recognized as refugees
came from just five countries:
Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan,
South Sudan and Myanmar.
Our next report takes us to Pakistan
which has hosted hundreds of thousands
of Afghan refugees
for four decades.
Bahauddin Khan runs a small grocery store
in this refugee camp in Pakistan.
Every day he checks his income
and expenses.
He was about the same age as this child
when his family fled Afghanistan
some 40 years ago.
Today it's a distant memory.
We had to get out of Afghanistan.
There was a war going on.
So when the situation became worse,
we fled.
Pakistan took us in.
We've been able to live here
ever since.
Haji Bahadur also fled Afghanistan
after the Soviet invasion in 1979.
He has lived in the camp ever since.
It's one of 20
in this province alone.
More than a
million Afghans live in Pakistan,
they're largely on their own.
I would be lying if I said we got
financial support.
The truth is we don't get any aid
from the Pakistani government.
Now, for the first time, Pakistan is
registering the Afghan refugees residing
in the country.
Registered refugees are issued
a biometric identity card.
Many children born here have never been
registered at all.
It's hoped the data will give
international aid agencies a clearer picture
of the needs in the refugee community.
This exercise, we are collecting
a most updated information
of Afghan refugees such as
education level, vocational
skills, also maybe language,
also vulnerability.
And this updated information is also
going to assist us
to better design from our activities,
not only in Pakistan but in Afghanistan
when they return to Afghanistan.
Pakistani authorities have tried to
encourage refugees to return home.
Nadeen Ejaz is interviewing families to
see if they're ready to make the move
after NATO troops leave Afghanistan.
Their new ID cards are only valid
until 2023.
In a questionnaire, they're asked if the
situation in Afghanistan normalizes,
then do they want to leave?
Ninety percent of the refugees answer with a no
They do not want to go back to
their home country.
For Bahauddin Khan, one thing is clear:
he will only return home
if there's peace.
They are the caminantes or walkers.
Millions of them have left Venezuela,
fleeing the country's humanitarian crisis.
Now some of them are going back.
The pandemic and political turmoil in
neighboring Colombia has prompted
a wave of Venezuelans
worn down by economic hardship to make
the journey home.
I left with the goal of succeeding
and helping my family, but now
prices are too high in Colombia.
I could not make ends meet.
Luis Arias just made it back to
Venezuela after walking for two weeks
with his family from the Colombian capital Bogota.
They survived on goodwill along the way
but that dried up
when they crossed the border.
The situation at home is dire.
NGOs say that the country needs much more
international aid
to stave off crippling hunger.
Financing has been
way below what is necessary in regards
to the dimensions of the crisis in the country.
The numbers are shameful.
Even the aid that does reach Venezuela
is hard to distribute.
Activist efforts are often hampered by
fuel shortages,
violence, corruption, and political meddling.
According to the World Food Program,
Venezuela is among the four
worst countries in the world with food insecurity.
And the UN predicts that by the end of this year
seven million people could have left Venezuela,
making it the second largest migration
after Syria, yet humanitarian aid for Venezuela
is at its minimum.
Andreina Bermudez thought about joining the exodus
but says the risk was and is too high
with young children.
Through her eldest daughter's school,
her family received food and educational
supplies from UNICEF until December.
Now they're hoping more aid can restart the program.
I noticed that when we received the aid,
many parents were happy and thankful,
mostly for the food because we could give the
children in our school a balanced meal.
To make ends meet, this stay-at-home mom
relies on what she can't find.
Today a neighbor has extra eggs for sale
but the supply of cheap food is sporadic.
We cannot buy imported products in
regular supermarkets at dollar prices,
so we have to settle for small markets
near home,
vegetable merchants and places that sell
at better prices.
That is the Venezuela the caminantes
are walking home to,
a country still ravaged by economic decline.
Its people still struggling to feed
themselves, still waiting for
international help.
We can speak now to Chris Melser,
he's a spokesperson for the UN's refugee agency.
Good morning, Chris, thank you for joining us.
We just saw a report
there with Afghans who fled conflict.
And your report shows there's been mentioning again
that the number of people
who have been forced to flee their homes rose again
despite the pandemic, so
what are the biggest drivers behind this rise?
Yes, this is indeed, these were very, very depressing numbers
and you already mentioned that more than
two-thirds of the refugees are only from
from five countries and
the most of the refugees are
still from Syria, 6.7 million.
Another hotspot is for example is Venezuela where
also millions of people flew that country
Afghanistan, South Sudan, these are all
these drivers of the development.
The plus is this year is not
that big like in other years but
yes, 82.4 million, this is the
complete, all the inhabitants of Germany
or one percent of the human kind is
now refugee or internal displaced person.
And Chris, where are the majority of
these refugees ending up
and are they able to stay
where they end up?
Well the last question is a very important question.
Still the biggest host country for refugees is Turkey
with 3.7 million refugees who found
protection there, most of them from Syria.
Colombia is another country
who accepted millions of people.
Pakistan, as you mentioned in the report.
Uganda and Germany is
number five with 1.2 million refugees
finding protection in Germany.
But don't make a mistake.
86% of all the refugees,
86% are in developing countries
and these are very often also countries
who also suffer of problems with
malnutrition and other things.
But anyway, they are hosting
almost 9 out of 10 refugees.
Another staggering number, Chris, is that
more than 40 percent of those who are
fleeing are children.
Many are born as refugees,
many are stateless.
What kind of impact does that have on
these children's futures?
This is also depressing and I was in many
refugee camps in Bangladesh.
I'm just returned from Ethiopia
and I've heard from several
refugees around the world actually,
parents telling me,
forget us, we are a lost generation,
but do something for our children.
Give them education, then they have a chance.
Well we don't want to give up the
parents' generation as well, but indeed,
education is the key factor for
the children so these refugees
will not stay refugees though,
they become engineers, pilots,
doctors, whatever. Handyman.
But at least that they have a future,
and that's why this is also priority for us.
Unfortunately, quite often,
we do not have enough money
to give more than just basic education.
Yeah, that is indeed troubling, and Chris,
I want to ask you about something we saw
in a report, the prospect of refugees returning
back to their home countries.
We've also seen Denmark, for example,
declare parts of Syria safe for refugees
to return so they're canceling residency permits.
So what happens to refugees who do return?
So what are conditions like for them?
Well this is very very different from
from country to country.
When it comes to Syria,
we don't think that Syria is in any way
a safe place again that you can
return refugees against their will to Syria
In other places, it might be possible, for
example, about a quarter million of
refugees returned last year
and this is of course a glimmer of hope.
But unfortunately for
most of the refugees,
and about three quarters of all refugees
stay in the neighboring countries always and hope to
go back where they come from
very soon.
For many of them, this is unfortunately
not a near-time solution.
And I do want to
come back to Germany because you
mentioned that this is a country that also hosts
millions of asylum seekers.
It did register fewer asylum seekers last year
but the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
Philippa Grandia said inclusion is key
so just briefly if you can, Chris,
what is needed here to, these tools that
are needed to make refugees in
Germany feel at home?
We just talked to Paul Landfield,
he's a refugee in Austria,
but I think it's the same thing,
who came from Hungary more than 60 years ago
and he's now a well-known journalist
in Austria and he said,
integration is a key
because refugees are a treasure.
So that's why refugees learn the language,
try to use your chances that also
the host community, Germany,
or that case, Austria
use this treasure, integrate the people,
teach refugees language and so on and then
this is the best you can do because
integration is one part of the solution
for the worldwide refugee problem.
Chris Melzer from the UNHCR, thank you for
sharing your insights with us today.