New figures released today by UNHCR reveal the continuing upward trend for forcibly displaced people worldwide. At the end of 2019 there were 79.5 million refugees, asylum-seekers and internally displaced people - a new high and an increase of 8.7 million since the end of 2018. As cited in the latest report, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi commented: "We are witnessing a changed reality in that forced displacement nowadays is not only vastly more widespread but is simply no longer a short-term and temporary phenomenon."
As our infographic shows, the new record figure is in sharp contrast to the 42.7 million people recorded in 2012, and even as recently as the 59.2 million in 2014.
