According to UN data, more than 43 million people worldwide are now forcibly displaced as a result of conflict and persecution, the highest number since the mid-1990s.
More than 15 million of the uprooted are refugees who fled their home countries, while another 27 million are people who remain displaced by conflict within their own homelands — so-called ‘internally displaced people’ (IDPs).
Major refugee populations include Palestinians (4.8 million), Afghans (2.9 million), Iraqis (1.8 million), Somalis (700,000), Congolese (456,000), Myanmarese (407,000), Colombians (390,000), Sudanese (370,000).
Children constitute about 41 percent of the world’s refugees. Many of them spend their entire childhood far from home and without access to basic education.
Following are the photos from refugee camps outside of Islamabad, home to almost over a million displaced Afghan children (registered and unregistered); and from Jordan’s Zaatari refugee camp, home to some of the more than one million displaced Syrian children.
Refugee children from Pakistan’s troubled Swat Valley who fled fighting, play in Jalozai camp, Monday, May 18, 2009 in Peshawar, Pakistan. The Pakistani Taliban have vowed to resist until the “last breath” as security forces entered two militant-held towns and fought on the outskirts of a third in what could turn into bloody urban battles near the Afghan border. (AP Photo/ Mohammad Sajjad)
An Afghan girl smiles as she rides on a hand-operated ferris wheel with other children in a slum on the outskirts of Islamabad March 19, 2013. REUTERS/Faisal Mahmood (PAKISTAN )
/Photos by: Mohammad Sajjad, Mohammed Muheisen, Nathalie Bardou, Pedro Ugarte, Emilio Morenatti, Faisal Mahmood/
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