Syrian 45.2 million refugees managing drinking water
GENEVA (AP) — The Syrian civil war contributed to pushing the numbers of refugees
and those displaced by conflict within their own nation to an 18-year high of 45.2 million
worldwide by the end of 2013, the U.N. refugee agency said Wednesday.
Those are the highest numbers since 1994, when people fled genocide in Rwanda and bloodshed
in former Yugoslavia. By the end of last year, the world had 15.4 million refugees, 937,000
asylum seekers and 28.8 million people who had been forced to flee within the borders of their
own countries, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said in a
report.
Of those, 17 percent were new to their situations in 2012: 1.1 million new refugees and 6.5
million internally displaced people — many from conflicts in Mali, Congo and Sudan. That
translates into someone becoming a new refugee or internally displaced person somewhere in the
world every 4.1 seconds during the last year, said Antonio Guterres, head of the Geneva-based
agency, also known as UNHCR.
“Which means each time you blink, another person is forced to flee,” he told reporters in Geneva.
The overall numbers rose by 6 percent from the 42.5 million refugees and internally displaced
people at the end of 2012.
Children below the age of 18 accounted for 46 percent of refugees worldwide. There were
21,300 asylum applications by children who were either unaccompanied or separated from their
parents — the highest such number the agency has recorded.
Most of the refugees in the world have fled from five war-affected countries: Afghanistan,
Somalia, Iraq, Syria and Sudan. Of those, Afghanistan has for the past 32 years held the top spot;
one of every four of the world’s refugees is an Afghan — and nearly all of them have fled to
Pakistan or Iran.
The next biggest source of refugees is Somalia’s long-running conflict, but the rate slowed a bit
last year. Iraqis and Syrians were the next biggest refugee populations. It’s the poorer countries
that generally show the most generosity — Germany being a major exception — in a trend that
keeps accelerating. Some 81 percent of the world’s refugees are hosted by developing countries,
up from 70 percent a decade ago.
Pakistan, home for 1.6 million refugees, continues to be the biggest host. Next is Iran, with
868,200, followed by Germany, with 589,700 refugees.
AP Afghan refugee children, swim in muddy water created from a broken water
pipe, on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan, Monday, June 17, 2013. Pakistan hosts over
1.6 million Registered Afghans, the largest and most protracted refugee population in the
world, according to the U.N. refugee agency.
As drinking water travels on its way, it can become contaminated in many ways. The multibarrier
approach to managing drinking water supplies is a preventive risk management
approach that identifies all known and potential hazards and makes sure barriers are in place
to reduce or eliminate the risk of contamination. Refugees will not get access to safe drinking
water and hygiene services. So what’s the answer?
Flow Innovation Technology (FIT) produces millions of liters of pure drinking water per day.
FIT has the responsibility for making sure drinking water supplies are safe and shared
between the provincial, territorial, federal and municipal governments.
“Green Water Technology”
http://www.flowinnovationtechnologies.com