Guardian Global Development

Civil wars create new crisis despite number of refugees falling to lowest level for 25 years

· Report says 25 million displaced in own country
· Millions return to African states and Afghanistan

The number of international refugees has fallen to its lowest level in a quarter of a century but civil wars have led to a big rise in those forced to flee their homes while staying within the boundaries of their country, according to the United Nations.

With millions returning to countries such as Afghanistan, Angola and Sierra Leone, refugee numbers now stand at 9.2 million, the lowest figure for 25 years, says The State of the World's Refugees: Human Displacement in the New Millennium. In 1992 the figure was 18 million.

However, there are now some 25 million internally displaced people who do not fall under the 1951 Refugee Convention but who cannot live in their homes.

"People who would otherwise seek safety in neighbouring states are more frequently compelled to remain within the borders of their own country, most often in similar conditions to refugees," said the UN high commissioner for refugees, Antonio Guterres. He said internal displacement was the world community's "biggest failure" in terms of humanitarian action.

"In many circumstances, for displaced people the government is part of the problem and not part of the solution," Mr Guterres told the Guardian. He will today launch the report with Hilary Benn, the development secretary.

Fewer conflicts between states has cut the numbers but civil wars have still made people flee their homes. Due to conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan there were 7.5 million internally displaced in 2005. The UNHCR is now embarking on its biggest operation to help displaced people since 1945.

The movement of people and their "forced displacement for political, economic and environmental reasons", will be one of the 21st century's two biggest problems, Mr Guterres, the former Portuguese prime minister, said. He warned countries against sending back asylum seekers to states with poor human rights.

There is still a "huge gap" between what developed countries should be doing to help and what they are doing, he said. The "war on terror" was having a destabilising effect, as "populist politicians and media" try to create fears that refugees are threats to security.

Mr Guterres criticised countries which sent refugees back to possible torture or imprisonment. "Nobody is supposed to be returned to a country where he or she will be tortured," he said. "The refugee law is not the only human rights law."

He also criticised claims that refugees threatened state security. "Refugees are not terrorists, they are the victims of terrorism," he said, adding that asylum seekers had to submit to fingerprinting, biometrics and many other identity tests. "It is obvious that if you want to act as a terrorist you don't go through this channel."

More than 4 million refugees have returned to Afghanistan and hundreds of thousands more to Angola, Sierra Leone, Burundi and Liberia. It is thought more than 4 million will return to southern Sudan, either from abroad or from internal displacement, over the next few years.

But the report paints a gloomy picture for more than half the world's refugees, with at least 33 "protracted refugee situations" involving groups of at least 25,000 people in exile for five years or more. They account for 5.7 million of the world's 9.2 million refugees. The largest, most intractable refugee issue remains that of the Palestinians, with some 4.2 million dispersed across the Middle East. Mr Guterres saw no imminent solution: "We can only hope but we have been hoping for decades."

Mr Guterres said one of the problems was that the line between migrants seeking a better economic existence and refugees with a "well-founded fear of persecution" had become blurred. This had led to intolerance and misunderstandings, he said. The number of international migrants had been put at more than 175 million and asylum seekers and refugees made up only a small proportion of that, he said. The movement of people, along with the environment, were the world's two biggest challenges, he suggested.

The survey also found that, despite the fact 70% of the world's refugees were in developing countries, there was a growing degree of "asylum fatigue" in many parts of the world. Mr Guterres said he did not believe such fatigue was justified in Europe. He said Pakistan had taken in 6 million Afghans, of whom there were still 3.5 million in the country. He singled out Brazil's enlightened policy on refugees with applicants being processed swiftly.

"The danger in the current international context is that states will use the issue of terrorism to legitimise the introduction of restrictive asylum practices and refugee policies, a process which began well before the events of September 11 2001," the report concluded. "This has led to a tendency to criminalise migrants, including asylum seekers, by associating them with people smugglers and traffickers ... the rise of xenophobia and fear of asylum seekers in many countries ... has led to a tendency to see refugees not as victims but as perpetrators of insecurity."

Maeve Sherlock, of the Refugee Council in Britain, said: "The UN is right in that richer countries like the UK are simply not pulling their weight when it comes to looking after people who are forced to flee their homelands. The vast majority of refugees find help in developing countries, not the west, so we should be doing a lot more."

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