More Than 3 Percent of World’s Population Are Migrants
On International Migrants Day, the United Nations said that 258 million people – around 3.4 percent of the world’s population – are migrants, including around 26 million refugees and asylum seekers.
The number of international migrants has grown by 49 percent since 2000, according to the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, which releases its International Migration Report every two years.
While 84 percent of refugees and asylum seekers live in low- and middle-income countries, 64 percent of migrants live in high-income countries. The largest number of migrants – 50 million – live in the United States, followed by Saudi Arabia, Russia and Germany.
The report said around three-quarters of migrants are of working age and 48 percent are women.
“Reliable data and evidence are critical to combat misperceptions about migration and to inform migration policies,” said U.N. under-secretary-general for economic and social affairs, Liu Zhenmin.
First Group of African Refugees Arrives in France From Chad
The first group of African refugees arrived in France from Chad under a new French initiative.
The government of Emmanuel Macron committed to resettling 3,000 African refugees through “protection missions” in Niger and Chad, in an effort to provide alternatives to the deadly Central Mediterranean route.
Djamel from the Central African Republic was among the first group of refugees arriving in Paris this week. His wife and four children had spent four years at a camp in Chad. “Now we’ve no other family. Now you are our family,” he told Agence France-Presse at the airport.
Further groups of refugees are expected to arrive this week. They will be housed in a convent in Alsace for four months before finding their own accommodation.
France has also committed to resettling 7,000 refugees from the Middle East by 2019. The resettlement program is one part of Macron’s migration policy, which also includes stepping up identification and expulsion of migrants who do not qualify for asylum.
Cartoonist Held on Manus Island Given Refuge in Europe
An Iranian cartoonist has found refuge in Europe after four years held in Australia’s offshore refugee center on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island.
Ali Dorani tried to take a boat to Australia in 2013 but it capsized and he was taken to Manus. He took on the pen name Eaten Fish and began documenting life in the detention facility in cartoons. International cartoonists rallied around his plight and Dorani won the Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award in 2016.
Dorani was able to leave Manus after being granted a residency in Europe by the International Cities of Refuge Network, a network of cities and regions providing refuge to persecuted writers and artists.
Recommended Reads
- BBC: Migrants in Germany: Should They Be Paid to Go Home?
- Oxfam: ‘I Still Don’t Feel Safe to Go Home’: Voices of Rohingya Refugees
- KNOMAD: Collecting Data on Remittances to and From Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons
- The Washington Post: He Survived a Stabbing. Now This German Mayor Is Defiantly Refusing to Back Down on Refugees