The number of forcedly displaced people reached new heights in 2015 , the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reported.

According to the UNHCR estimates, due to the conflict and wars 65.3 million people were displaced at the end of 2015 compared to 59.5 million just 12 months earlier. Just 21.3 million of them are refugees. Forced displacement has been on the rise since at least the mid-1990s in most regions, but over the past five years the rate has increased. Also in the tally are a record 40.8 million people who had been forced to flee their homes but were within the confines of their own countries.

Measured against the world’s population of 7.4 billion people, one in every 113 people globally is now either an asylum-seeker, internally displaced or a refugee – putting them at a level of risk for which UNHCR knows no precedent. The tally is greater than the population of the United Kingdom – or of Canada, Australia and New Zealand combined.

 The study found that three countries produce half the world’s refugees. Syria at 4.9 million, Afghanistan at 2.7 million and Somalia at 1.1 million together accounted for more than half the refugees under UNHCR’s mandate worldwide. Colombia at 6.9 million, Syria at 6.6 million and Iraq at 4.4 million had the largest numbers of internally displaced people. Turkey was the biggest host country, with 2.5 million refugees.

The European continent, according to the estimates of the UNHCR itself made 593,000 refugees, the majority of whom arrived from Ukraine. At least 1.6 million people have been displaced within the country. The states of Europe have also received 4.4 million people, more than half of which (2.5 million) came from Turkey. The greatest number of asylum-seekers last year was recorded in Germany. In 2015, the population growth due to migration there was 46%. The conflict in Ukraine, migratory crisis and proximity of the European countries to Syria and Iraq became the reason of a similar situation in Europe.

The report, entitled Global Trends, noted that on average 24 people were forced to flee each minute in 2015, four times more than a decade earlier, when six people fled every 60 seconds. The report is based on the data submitted by the states, the UN partner organizations, including the International Centre for monitoring movements and also on information collected by UNHCR. It is the first time in the organization’s history that the threshold of 60 million has been crossed.