A RECORD number of people have been displaced due to war, violence and persecution for the 12th year in a row, the United Nations refugee agency said today.

The number of people forced to flee their homes has reached 120 million worldwide, equivalent to the population of Japan and up by six million from the year before, due to new conflicts in Sudan and Gaza contributing to the figure.

But Syria remains the world’s largest displacement crisis, with nearly 14 million people driven from their homes since 2011.

Millions more were displaced in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Myanmar by fighting last year.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that the vast majority of refugees were in neighbouring and low and middle-income countries, saying that the belief that people went to wealthy countries in the EU was false.

Commissioner Filippo Grandi urged governments to tackle the root cause of the problem, rather than politicising refugees and closing borders, which he said would not solve the issue.

“These are refugees, asylum-seekers, internally displaced people, people being forced away by conflict, by persecution, by different and increasingly complex forms of violence,” he said.

“Conflict remains a very, very deep driver of displacement.

“Unless there is a shift in international geopolitics, unfortunately, I actually see that figure continuing to go up.”

Mr Grandi described the displacement in Sudan since the war between rival generals began in April last year as “one of the most catastrophic.”

About nine million people have been internally displaced and nearly two million have fled to neighbouring countries.

In Gaza, Israel’s attacks have caused around 1.7 million people —nearly 80 per cent of the population — to become internally displaced, often multiple times.

“Another refugee crisis outside Gaza would be catastrophic on all levels, including because we have no guarantee that the people will be able to return to Gaza one day,” Mr Grandi said.

He also criticised the United States for its plans to enact new restrictions on migrants claiming asylum at the country’s southern border as a possible violation of international humanitarian law.

On Wednesday, a coalition of migrant rights groups sued the Biden administration over the plans to halt asylum processing on the border with Mexico, arguing that it is identical to a previous initiative by former president Donald Trump that was blocked by the courts.