Trend of global displacement & proportion displaced | 1996 - 2015 (end-year) Displaced population (millions) Refugees and asylum-seekers Internally displaced persons Proportion displaced 70 10 9 60 8 50 7 6 40 5 30 4 3 20 2 10 1 0 number, some 8.6 million remained within their own countries and around 1.8 million sought international protection abroad. In addition, 2.0 million new claims for asylum were made within the year. The global population of forcibly displaced people today is larger than the entire population of the United Kingdom.5 If they were a country, the forcibly displaced would be the 21st largest in the world. Some nationalities were particularly affected by forced displacement. With 4.9 million refugees, 6.6 million IDPs, and nearly 250,000 asylum-seekers, an estimated 11.7 million Syrians were displaced by end-2015, seeking protection within Syria or abroad. Other large displaced populations – those with over 2 million people displaced, either internally or as refugees or asylum-seekers – at the end of 2015 were Afghans, Colombians, Congolese, Iraqis, Nigerians, Somalis, Sudanese, South Sudanese, and Yemenis. The global population of forcibly displaced people has increased substantially in the past two decades, rising from 37.3 million in 1996 to 65.3 million in 2015 – a 75 per cent increase. From 1999 to 2011 this population remained relatively stable, fluctuating at around six individuals per 1,000, or about one in about every 167 people.6 Since then, however, and coinciding with the beginning of the ‘Arab Spring’ and the Syrian conflict, this proportion has increased dramatically, rising to nearly nine per 1,000 by the end of 2015 or one in about every 113 people Figure 1 . A tragic sign of our times, forced displacement impacts UNHCR Global Trends 2015 14 13 12 15 20 20 20 11 20 10 20 20 09 08 20 07 20 20 06 05 20 04 20 03 20 20 02 01 20 00 20 98 97 99 20 19 19 19 19 96 0 06 Proportion displaced (number displaced per 1,000 world population) Fig.1 an ever-increasing number of individuals, families, and communities, as well as a rising proportion of the world population. The conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic, which entered its fifth year in 2015, garnered significant worldwide attention because of the large refugee flows and humanitarian needs it generated. Yet other unresolved crises and conflicts, as well as new ones that arose during the year, also contributed to the increase in global forced displacement. These included new or reignited conflicts in Burundi, Iraq, Libya, Niger, and Nigeria, together with older or unresolved crises in Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, and Yemen. As a consequence, 2015 saw 1.8 million new refugees, compared to 1.2 million in 2014. Yet while the number of people newly displaced within their own country due to conflict and violence in 2015 remained high at 8.6 million, it was less than the record 11 million recorded the previous year. To put these numbers in perspective, on average 24 individuals worldwide were newly displaced every minute during 2015. This compares to 30 people per minute a year ago, which remains the highest such figure on record Figure 2 . Although the rate at which individuals were forced to leave their homes due to conflict and persecution decreased in 2015 5 Source for population size: United Nations, Population Division, World Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision, New York, 2015. 6 Ibid.