The food security crisis sparked by the Ukraine conflict is expected to force more people to escape their homes in poorer nations, pushing global displacement levels to new highs, according to the head of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR).
According to a United Nations estimate released on Thursday, 89.3 million people were forcibly displaced globally by the end of 2021 as a result of persecution, conflict, abuse, and violence. Millions more have fled or been displaced within Ukraine since then, with price spikes due to halted grain exports certain to fuel further migration elsewhere.
‘If you add a food crisis to everything I’ve mentioned – war, human rights, climate change – it will only exacerbate the tendencies I’ve detailed in this study,’ Filippo Grandi told journalists this week, calling the findings ‘staggering.’
‘Clearly, if this is not resolved immediately, the consequences will be terrible.’ He claimed that as a result of price spikes and violent insurgencies in Africa’s Sahel area, more people were fleeing.
According to the UNHCR study, the number of displaced people has climbed every year over the past decade. It has now surpassed the 42.7 million persons who were displaced in 2012.
Grandi also criticised what he called Ukraine’s ‘monopoly’ on funding, claiming that other programmes to assist displaced people were underfunded.
He mentioned a two-year battle in Ethiopia and a drought in the Horn of Africa, saying, ‘Ukraine should not make us overlook other challenges.’
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