More than 122-million displaced by wars as aid funding falls: UN
The number of people displaced by war and persecution around the world climbed above 122-million this year due to failures to resolve multiyear conflicts such as those in Sudan and Ukraine, the UN refugee agency said on Thursday.
However, it said funding to help refugees has fallen to 2015 levels. There were more than 2-million more people displaced globally by the end of April than there were the year before despite the return of nearly the same number of Syrians after the collapse of Bashar al-Assad's rule, according to the report by UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Filippo Grandi.
It attributed the rise to conflicts in Sudan, Myanmar and Ukraine, and a continued failure to stop the fighting.
'We are living in a time of intense volatility in international relations, with modern warfare creating a fragile, harrowing landscape marked by acute human suffering,' Grandi said in a statement alongside the report.
Humanitarians said a lack of political leadership in brokering peace deals is prolonging conflicts and stretching aid groups seeking to lessen their impact.

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IOL News
3 hours ago
- IOL News
Trump's white South African resettlement plan and the global colour line
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This programme protects not the displaced, but the entitlements embedded in whiteness — land, social status, and the right to global mobility. These arrivals, facilitated under a controversial executive order, mark the first time in US history that white South Africans have been accepted en masse as refugees. The move has drawn intense scrutiny, with South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola dismissing the claims as 'unfounded and inflammatory'. He clarified that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had no involvement and had consistently found no basis for refugee status for white South Africans. 'The resettlement of South Africans under the guise of being 'refugees' is a political project to delegitimise our democracy,' Lamola asserted. The narrative that white South Africans — particularly Afrikaner farmers — are victims of racial persecution has long circulated in far-right echo chambers, sustained by groups like AfriForum and amplified by conservative US media. Yet no credible human rights body has substantiated claims of systematic violence or oppression based on race in South Africa. In February 2025, Trump signed Executive Order 14152: Addressing Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa, suspending non-essential aid. He cited South Africa's land reform policies and its support for Palestine at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as evidence of 'anti-white discrimination'. His language echoed apartheid-era rhetoric, framing land expropriation without compensation — a constitutional measure designed to redress historical injustice — as proof of racial targeting. This is not a story about humanitarian rescue. It is about the repackaging of privilege as persecution. 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White South Africans are framed not as beneficiaries of a violent racial order, but as victims of transformation, worthy of rescue. South Africa's Constitutional Court recently affirmed that acquiring foreign nationality — whether through refugee resettlement or otherwise — does not automatically strip someone of South African citizenship. In a landmark ruling, the Court struck down a section of the Citizenship Act that had quietly revoked citizenship without due process, calling the move irrational and unconstitutional. However, the case of these white South Africans is unique. Their refugee claims are based on false premises and a political agenda. South Africa may therefore have grounds to argue that accepting the US offer constitutes a voluntary renunciation of citizenship. The Constitutional Court's ruling on dual citizenship might not protect them in this politically charged context. Nowhere is the hypocrisy more glaring than in the American South. 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Mexican seasonal workers, once the backbone of US agriculture, are also increasingly excluded — both by border walls and by labour policies that privilege whiteness over need. The result is a reshuffling of the global racial order, disguised as economic necessity. Trump's South African refugee programme is less about humanitarian concern and more about reaffirming a hierarchy of global suffering, where privilege continues to mask itself as victimhood. What we are witnessing is the reinforcement of a global colour line — one where whiteness retains its claim to mobility, safety, and opportunity, while blackness and brownness are rendered threats to be contained. The implications are profound: Refugee systems that prioritise whiteness over need. Economic visas favour white foreign farmers over Black citizens. Historical privilege is purposely mistaken for victimhood. This is not humanitarianism. It is neo-colonialism in motion. As the world watches Trump engineer the next stage of global apartheid, we must ask: What kind of refugee is it when only the privileged are welcome? When does skin colour ration citizenship, safety, and opportunity? If the notion of 'refuge' is to mean anything, it must centre justice, not historical comfort. Siyayibanga le economy! * Siyabonga Hadebe is an independent commentator based in Geneva on socio-economic, political and global matters. ** The views expressed here do not reflect those of the Sunday Independent, Independent Media, or IOL.


eNCA
5 hours ago
- eNCA
Macron urges renewed nuclear dialogue after Israel's Iran strikes
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IOL News
13 hours ago
- IOL News
Iran blames the US for Israeli airstrikes amid escalating tensions
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