UN releases 'disheartening' statistics on World Refugee Day

New UN figures to mark World Refugee Day have revealed the toll of violence and warfare on communities around the world.

Last year, 65.6 million people, half of them children, were forced to leave their homes - the equivalent of one person every three seconds, says the UN report.

A third of those, more than 20 million, left their country to become refugees, while the other 40 million remained within their national borders as displaced people. Turkey bore the brunt of the influx, taking in three million refugees in 2016.

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Why is displacement at an all-time high?

The number of displaced people around the world has almost doubled since 1997, when 33.9 million people were forced to flee their homes.

Most of the additional influx in recent years is due to the continuing conflict in Syria. This year alone, 5.5 million people fled the war-torn country.

However, the UN Commission for Refugees said sectarian violence and famine in sub-Saharan Africa were also major factors, with South Sudan the third-largest source of refugees after Syria and Afghanistan.

Is the outlook for 2017 any better?

Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, told the BBC the statistics spoke of "a disheartening failure of international diplomacy".

He added: "The world seems to have become unable to make peace."

The report "does not predict an optimistic outcome to the crisis", says Newsweek, but Grandi says commissioners hope the bleak figures will encourage governments and organisations to focus on "long-lasting solutions to crises, rather than just emergency responses".