International Refugee System in Crisis

Abstract

IN 1951, the year the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was established,1 there were an estimated one million refugees within the Commissioner’s mandate. That number increased 100-time in succeeding years.2 In 2002, refugees worldwide were estimated 14.9 million,3 coming to around 12 millions4 (excluding 3.7 million Palestine Refugees of in the Near East (UNRWA) and above 25 million internally displaced persons worldwide).5 By early 2004, the number of people concerned to the UNHCR was 17.1 million, including 9.7 million refugees (57%), 985,500 asylum seekers (6%), 1.1 million returned refugees (6%), 4.4 million internally displaced persons (26%) and 912,200 others of concern (5%).6. This article is dealing with the problems of refugees.