UNHCR: 264,500 migrants arrived in 2015
UNHCR says that some 264,500 refugees and migrants have crossed the Mediterranean this year. They include more than 158,000 who have arrived in Greece — many landing on small islands ill-equipped to deal with the influx — along with about 104,000 who’ve gone to Italy, around 1,950 to Spain and almost 100 to Malta.
5,000 flee to Rwanda
More than 5,000 Burundians flee to Rwanda over the weekend bringing the total number of arrivals to nearly 21,000. The Rwandan government expects the number of Burundians arriving in the country to rise to 50,000. Most of the arrivals in Rwanda are women and children, adding that the refugees report facing intimidation and threats of violence linked to upcoming elections. Rwanda, which is already hosting more than 74,000 refugees mainly from neighbouring DR Congo, has allocated land in Mahama in the Eastern Province for a new refugee camp, with the capacity to hold up to 50,000 people. UN agencies:
There has been a sharp increase in the number of Burundian refugees arriving in Rwanda…Five thousand people entering the country in two days is quite a significant jump… It is certainly concerning…The situation is quite chaotic at the moment…We think that this violence might continue and this fear of violence might continue and that there might be a bigger outflux, particularly to Rwanda.
Another 3,800 Burundians have fled to the South Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo since the beginning of July.
More than 3 million refugees
The UNHCR reports that more than three million Syrians are now registered as refugees. It says that with almost half of all Syrians displaced from their homes, the war is…
… the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era.
One in every eight Syrians has fled across the border into Lebanon, and a further 6.5 million are displaced within Syria. More than half of those displaced are children. The number of registered Syrian refugees has increased from two million just under a year ago.
1.45 million Iraqis displaced
The UNHCR reports that the number of Iraqis displaced by the conflict this year has risen to 1.45 million, a fifth higher than its planning estimate:
As a result of the displacement triggered primarily by the advancement of armed groups in both northwest and east of Mosul city in and around the districts of Jalawla (Diyala) and Sinjar (Ninewa), since 3 August, the United Nations has increased its planning number of people displaced in Iraq to 1.45 million. This is an increase of 250,000 from the previous planning figure of 1.2 million.
The number excludes Iraqis displaced before this year and a Syrian refugee population of 225,000 located in the north of the country.