U.N. Reports Asylum Crisis for Refugees

A U.N. agency reported Tuesday that worldwide turmoil is forcing an average of 10,000 refugees a day to flee their homelands, producing a flood of misery so relentless and frightening that traditional havens are closing their doors.

Releasing the report, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata said the total number of refugees has now swelled to 19.7 million people. On Oct. 21, the total was 18.9 million, but in the days since then, 800,000 fearful Burundians have fled their tiny African country in the wake of a bloody but abortive military coup.

On top of this, Ogata told a news conference, the world has 24 million people uprooted from their homes but seeking refuge in their own lands. Under international law, they are legally not classified as refugees. But Ogata, calling them displaced persons, said their problem is the same. In short, she said, the world now has almost 44 million uprooted people sorely in need of help.

But Ogata said there is “a crisis of asylum” as traditional havens such as Germany and the United States grow more reluctant to accept political refugees. She also said the U.N. refugee office, which depends on voluntary contributions from governments, had collected $1.5 billion last year but only $800 million so far this year. Her office is the main U.N. agency involved in sheltering refugees and supplying them with relief supplies.

Only a couple of years ago, the report said, many experts predicted that the Cold War’s end would bring a decline in refugees. But the turmoil and bloodshed spawned by splintering states and ethnic conflicts have instead increased the flow of refugees.

According to Ogata’s statistics, the total official number of refugees rose from 2.4 million in 1974 to 10.9 million in 1983 to 17.2 million in 1990 to 19.7 million today.

The report had some harsh words for Washington’s policy of intercepting Haitian refugees at sea and returning them to their beleaguered nation.

“The summary return of all Haitians to their country of origin appears to be in direct contravention of the widely recognized right to leave one’s country to seek asylum from persecution,” it said.

The report identified Iran (with 4.2 million refugees), Pakistan (1.6 million) and Malawi (1.1 million) as the countries harboring the most refugees. Although 1.5 million Afghans went home in 1992, the report said 4.5 million Afghans remain in other countries, the largest number of refugees from a single nation.