A record 68.5 million people have been forced to flee their homes due to war, violence and persecution, notably in places such as Myanmar and Syria, the UN has said.
By the end of 2017, the number was nearly three million higher than the previous year and showed a 50% increase from the 42.7m uprooted from their homes a decade ago, according to a report by the UN High Commission for Refugees.
The UN says these people have been displaced as a result of persecution, conflict, violence or human rights violationsMore than half of refugees in 2017 were childrenColombia, Syria and Democratic Republic of Congo account for the greatest numbers of people internally displacedWorldwide, 44,400 people were forcibly displaced from their home every day last yearIt is the fourth consecutive year that Turkey has hosted the most refugeesThe world's least developed countries host one-third of refugees, despite the focus on migrant numbers arriving in Europe and the US
More than two-thirds of the world's refugees came from just five countries. They are:Syria has the highest forcibly displaced population in the world with 6.3m refugees, 6.2m internally displaced persons and almost 150,000 asylum-seekersThis was the second largest refugee-producing country in 2017. Afghanistan's refugee population grew by 5% during 2017 to 2.6m peopleA huge number of people fled the world's youngest nationRefugees from Myanmar more than doubled last year to 1.2m, as a brutal army crackdown forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims to pour across the border into BangladeshAlmost one million people classed as refugees come from Somalia
