Visiting Marseille this weekend, the Pope paid tribute to the migrants “who did not survive, who were not saved”, calling on European leaders to choose “the culture of humanity”. Among them, refugees are, according to the definition of the High Commission for Refugees, “people fleeing conflict or persecution”. Their status is protected by international law and they cannot be “expelled or returned to situations where their lives and freedom are in danger”.
According to the UN agency, at the end of 2022, 108.4 million people were displaced around the world, including 35.2 million considered refugees.
One in two refugees in the world comes from Syria, Ukraine or Afghanistan
© / The Express
Three countries of origin concentrate half of these: Syria, with 6.55 million people who fled the war and the regime of Bashar Al-Assad. Next come, with 5.68 million people, Ukraine since its invasion by Russia at the beginning of 2022, and Afghanistan, since the Taliban takeover in 2021, with 5.66 million refugees. . These three countries are closely followed by Venezuela, in the grip of an unprecedented economic and political crisis.
5.4 million refugees in the world have the status of asylum seeker, with France concentrating around 100,000 people in this situation, as President Emmanuel Macron highlighted in a television interview this Sunday.