London 20 June 2021 – War and climate change are the two main causes behind the massive flow of refugees fleeing their countries, Over 2020 more than 3million people put their lives in peril to find a better life and protection, travelling across many countries often putting their lives in the hands of human traffickers.

On the World Refugee Day UNHCR gave the upsetting figure: 82.4 million people are forcibly displaced globally, the 1% of the whole humanity, “roughly the population of Germany and a new post-World War II record” the Associated Press says reporting “Filippo Grandi, the United Nations’ high commissioner for refugees, said conflict and the fallout from climate change in places such as Mozambique, Ethiopia’s Tigray region and Africa’s Sahel area, were key drivers of refugees and internally displaced people in 2020.

The pandemic did not stop the flow of women children and men escaping persecution and the high risk of being killed, putting their lives at risk and leaving their homeland for good despite the lockdown.

 “COVID-19 seems to have had no impact on some of the key root causes that push people to flee”, Grandi said “war, violence, discrimination, they have continued, no matter what, throughout the pandemic.”

Over the last ten years forcibly displaced people doubled, 42% of them are under 18, and nearly 1 million babies were born as refugees between 2018 and 2020. Over the last year the most of the refugees fled Syria, Venezuela and Afghanistan with the first three hosting countries respectively Turkey, Colombia and Pakistan.