Escape movement

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As a refugee movement , also refugees , a larger number is called by people who leave religious, racial or political persecution, natural disasters, economic hardship or other reasons, voluntarily or involuntarily, their place of residence due to similar circumstances, in particular war. Large refugee movements, mostly as a result of acts of war, have been documented since antiquity ( migration of peoples , Cimbrian wars , etc.). This article only looks at refugee movements since World War II .

Worldwide refugee movements

year refugees including
internally
displaced persons
2012 45.2 million 28.8 million
2013 51.2 million 33.3 million
2014 59.9 million 38.2 million
2015 65.3 million 40.8 million
2016 65.6 million 40.3 million
2017 68.5 million 40.0 million
As quoted at the end of the year according to UNHCR information.

According to the United Nations Refugee Agency ( UNHCR ), around 45.2 million people worldwide were on the run in 2012. The largest proportion ( 28.8 million people) concerned internally displaced persons ( people displaced within their own country). In 2013, 51.2 million people were on the run, 33.3 million of them in their own country. At the end of 2014, their number had risen to 59.9 million. 38.2 million of them were displaced within their home country. At the end of 2015 there were 65.3 million refugees worldwide, one year later 65.6 million. Of these, 40.8 million in 2015 and 40.3 million in 2016 were on the run within their own country.

At the end of 2018, a total of more than 70 million people were on the run - the highest number recorded since the Second World War .

Internally displaced persons

According to the UNHCR's 2014 annual report (as of the end of 2014), the countries with the largest number of internally displaced persons were Syria (7.6 million), Colombia (6 million) and Iraq (3.6 million).

The countries with the highest proportions of internally displaced persons in 2009 were Colombia (3,304,000), Dem. Rep. Congo (2,052,700), Pakistan (1,894,600), Iraq (1,552,000), Somalia (1,550,000 ) and Sudan (1,034,100).

causes

War, hunger, violence

Wars, civil wars, displacement, persecution of minorities (religious and ideological intolerance) and famine have always been the main reasons for people to flee.

In its 2014/2015 annual report, Amnesty International pointed to “millions of people living under the threat of kidnapping , torture , sexual violence , attacks, artillery fire and bombs on residential areas” for 2014 and insisted that the The nature of many armed conflicts has changed: armed groups, militias and terrorist organizations increasingly attacked civilians.

Natural disasters, environmental flight

Even after natural disasters , there are major refugee movements. Furthermore, climate changes, repetitive and worsening extreme weather conditions, also in the course of global climate change , exacerbate existing conflicts and cause new or intensify existing refugee movements. The causes are z. Examples include: desertification and increasing drought in agriculture , scarcity of drinking water , strong tropical cyclones and extreme amounts of rain , rising sea ​​levels with the flooding of low-lying land areas.

The number of people displaced by natural disasters is estimated by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) at 42 million people worldwide in 2010, a number that has increased significantly compared to previous years.

"Flow of refugees"

The metaphor of the “ flow of refugees ” is often used colloquially and as a political catchphrase . In non-figurative terms, people move and are guided by the intention to get away from A and get to B; they do not “flow” or “flow” (unlike water, which has no intentions but only reacts to external forces). If one individual does not "flow", then many individuals do not "flow" either. The metaphors “current / flood”, “drama” and “earthquake” taken from nature as a description of the behavior of refugees trigger two inappropriate thoughts in the opinion of critics of the terms: “Firstly, the catastrophe apparently has no originator. At least no one who can be reached and replies to emails. Second, refugees are at the mercy of higher powers. We as the EU cannot do anything about that. 'Sorry' is the message. "

According to Lann Hornscheidt from the Humboldt University in Berlin , such catastrophe comparisons work “on an unconscious level” and trigger fears in people.

Many conservatives also have problems with the term “refugee flow”. For them, this term has a positive connotation. You are thinking of the large number of German refugees and displaced persons who had to leave their homeland in the east at the end of the Second World War or shortly after the end of the war or who left as refugees from the Soviet occupation zone or the GDR, i.e. H. to some self-suffered suffering or the suffering of family members. The people concerned feel empathy for the collective fate of many Germans in the 20th century, but not for the situation of the many “ foreigners ” who migrated to Germany . That is why they do not use the word “refugee flow” to refer to their migration.

Major refugee movements over the last few decades

  • 1933 to about 1941: emigration and exodus of 280,000 Jews and of political or racial persecution of the German Empire in the era of National Socialism .
  • 1939 to 1950: As a result of the Second World War , 30 million people, including 12.5 million Germans, were on the run or were expelled from their homeland.
  • 1947: After the partition of India in 1947, around 20 million people were on the run.
  • 1948: When the State of Israel 's independence gained, 700,000 were Arab Palestinians from the former British Mandate of Palestine were expelled. (see Nakba )
  • 1959: The occupation of Tibet by China meant that up to 150,000 Tibetans had to flee to other countries (above all India).
  • 1960: One million dispossessed refugees of European descent as a result of the Algerian war .
  • 1971: About 40 million people were on the run during the Bangladesh War .
  • 1955 to 1975: The Vietnam War triggered large refugee movements, in South Vietnam approx. 6 million refugees.
  • 1979: The invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet troops, the Soviet-Afghan War (1979 to 1989) led to 3 million people fleeing to Pakistan and Iran.
  • 1984/1985: A in several countries of the Sahel and Ethiopia prevailing famine occurred hundreds of thousands of people to flee and resettlement.
  • 1989–1999: During the Kashmir conflict in the 1990s, around 300,000 to 700,000 Kashmiri pandits were on the run.
  • 1991–1999: Ethnic conflicts in the former Yugoslavia triggered the Yugoslav Wars: Slovenia (1991), Croatian War ( 1991–1995), Bosnian War (1992–1995) and the Kosovo War (1999) and drove millions of people to flight.
  • 1991: Kurds from Iraq fled Iraqi attacks to Iran (1.5 million people), Turkey closed the borders.
  • 1994: Civil war and genocide in Rwanda triggered the flight of 2 million Rwandans to neighboring countries.
  • 2001: The Afghan Civil War (1989 to 2001) , which broke out after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, triggered the flight of 7 million Afghans, mainly to the neighboring countries of Pakistan and Iran.
  • 2003: 2 million Iraqis fled their country due to the war (“Third Gulf War ”).
  • 2005: 2 million people were displaced by evictions from the slums near the capital of Zimbabwe .
  • By 2009: 2.9 million Iraqis were fleeing civil war and terror, including 1.6 million internally displaced people in Iraq .
  • By 2009: 200,000 Tamils fled the civil war in Sri Lanka .
  • 2010: The flood disaster in Pakistan affected 14 million people, of whom at least 6 to 7 million needed immediate humanitarian aid; Thousands became environmental refugees .
  • 2009–2015: Thousands of Christians and Hindus flee Pakistan every year . Religious minorities in Pakistan are persecuted and killed by Islamists, or imprisoned on charges of blasphemy. Over 1000 Christian and Hindu girls are kidnapped each year and then forcibly converted and forcibly married. There are also repeated attacks on churches and the holy places of the Ahmadis , Sufis and Shiites by radical Sunni Islamists.
  • Since 2011, several million refugees have fled Syria as part of the Syrian civil war . Others fled because of the Iraq crisis from Iraq . The host countries are predominantly the neighboring countries and the countries of the European Union .

See also: Boat refugees today , on Europe: Refugee crisis in Europe from 2015 and the countries of origin of these refugees , on Asia: Rohingya refugees

Receiving countries

According to an October 2016 report by Amnesty International , based on United Nations data, there were a total of 21 million refugees worldwide, 56% of whom were taken in by ten countries directly bordering the conflict: Jordan (2.7 million), Turkey (2.5 million), Pakistan (1.6 million), Lebanon (more than 1.5 million), Iran, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Chad.

At the end of 2017, according to the UNHCR report "Global Trends", the highest number of recognized refugees admitted under the UNHCR mandate was in Turkey (3,480,348), followed by Pakistan (1,393,143), Uganda (1,350,504), Lebanon (998,890), Iran (979,435), Germany (970,365), Bangladesh (932,216), Sudan (906,599), Ethiopia (889,412), Jordan (691,023). With over 12.5 million refugees, these ten states sheltered around 63% of the recognized refugees admitted under the UNHCR mandate.

At the end of 2018, according to the UNHCR report "Global Trends", 20,117,541 refugees were registered worldwide (not counting internally displaced persons), the five largest receiving countries were Turkey (3,681,685), Pakistan (1,404,019), Uganda (1,165,653) , Sudan (1,078,287) and Germany (1,063,837). Turkey was the country with the largest number of refugees admitted for the fifth year in a row.

See also

Web links

  • Flight and displacement , refugee movements, host countries and countries of origin of refugees and asylum seekers, internally displaced persons (status: end of 2017), Federal Agency for Civic Education, August 8, 2018

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Almost 60 million people worldwide on the run. UNHCR Germany, June 20, 2015, accessed September 23, 2017 .
  2. ↑ UNHCR: Statistical Yearbook 2012 , p. 6
  3. ↑ UNHCR data for 2015 (PDF) UNHCR statistics for 2015
  4. ↑ a b Kirsten Maas-Albert: On the UNHCR World Report: Europe's lack of creative power. Heinrich Böll Foundation, accessed on September 23, 2017 .
  5. ↑ a b Facts & Figures. UNHCR, accessed September 23, 2017 .
  6. ↑ UN Refugee Aid for World Refugee Day. In: uno-fluechtlingshilfe.de . June 20, 2019, accessed August 19, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Record number: there have never been so many refugees. In: oe24.at . August 19, 2019. Retrieved August 19, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Refugees worldwide. Facts and Figures: Global Trends - Annual Report 2014. UNHCR, accessed March 5, 2016 .
  9. ↑ STATISTICAL YEARBOOK 2009, Trends in displacement, protection and solutions
  10. ↑ Amnesty International Annual Report 2014/2015. Quoted from: Amnesty accuses states of failing to protect the population. Süddeutsche Zeitung, February 25, 2015, accessed on March 22, 2015 .
  11. ↑ Norman Myers, World Map Zones of Climate Change
  12. ↑ publications.iom.int: World Migration Report 2011 - Communicating Effectively about Migration
  13. ↑ Language criticism . blog.br.de (Bayerischer Rundfunk). 15 October 2013
  14. ↑ Fabian Scheuermann: Don't make a wave like that: Many refugees? Yes. An "avalanche"? No. Flood of disaster metaphors in the current debate . Magazine of the Federal Agency for Political Education . January 23, 2016
  15. ↑ Matthias Heine: Why refugees are now often called "Refugees" . The world . August 24, 2015
  16. ↑ Jochen Oltmer : Migration and forced migrations under National Socialism. Federal Agency for Civic Education, March 15, 2005, accessed on November 18, 2017 .
  17. ↑ The Nakba - Flight and Expulsion of the Palestinians in 1948. Retrieved April 2, 2018 .
  18. ^ Martin Evans: Algeria: France's undeclared War , Oxford, 2012, pp. 318–322
  19. ↑ Frank Girmann, Large flows of refugees over the last few decades ( Memento from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Rheinische Zeitung, July 28, 2011
  20. ↑ Poorer countries take in most of the refugees. In: Deutschlandfunk. October 4, 2016, accessed January 27, 2019 .
  21. ↑ Who is where? Amnesty International, Gruppen Basel, accessed January 27, 2019 .
  22. ↑ Global Trends: Forced displacement in 2017. UNHCR, 2018, accessed on January 27, 2019 (English). Pp. 15-18. See: Overview in the graphic "Figure 4: Major host countries of refugees" on p. 17; Text in the penultimate section of the left column on p. 18; Figures in table "Annex Table 1", pp. 64–68.
  23. ↑ Ranking of the ten countries with the most accepted refugees (status: end of 2017). In: Statista . Retrieved January 27, 2019 .
  24. ↑ Global Trends: Forced displacement in 2018. UNHCR, 2019, accessed on January 12, 2020 (English). Order from section “2018 in Review”, pp. 2–3; precise figures from: Annex, Table 1, pp. 65–69.