Antonio Guterres

: We are witnessing a paradigm change, an unchecked slide into an era in which the scale of global forced displacement as well as the response required is now clearly dwarfing anything seen before, Antonio Guterres, the UN agency commissioner, said in a statement, according to Toronto Star. It is terrifying that on the one hand there is more and more impunity for those starting conflicts, and on the other, there is seeming utter inability of the international community to work together to stop wars and build and preserve peace. The startling revelation in the latest annual global refugee report has prompted the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to declare this a dangerous new era in worldwide displacement. According to the 97-page annual report to be released in Geneva on Thursday, the number of people forced to flee their homes skyrocketed to 59.5 million last year — the highest ever reported for a single year — from 51.2 million in 2013 and 37.5 million a decade ago. At least 15 conflicts have erupted or re-ignited in the last five years, according to the report: eight in Africa ; three in the Middle East ; one in Europe and three in Asia . Few of these crises have been resolved and most still generate new displacement, the UNHCR said. Worldwide, one in every 122 people is now either a refugee, internally displaced or seeking asylum, it said. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.