UN sounds alarm on politicization of refugees and asylum

GENEVA: Refugees fleeing persecution too often face restrictions on their right to seek asylum, with the debate around protection becoming increasingly politicized, the United Nations warned Tuesday.

UN refugees chief Barham Salih urged the world to move from managing sky-high displacement to seeking to resolve it, at an event marking the 75th anniversary of the Refugee Convention.

“We gather at a time of increasingly politicized debates about refugees and asylum,” said Iraqi ex-president Salih, himself a former refugee.

“Too often, people forced to flee become scapegoats for wider social, economic and political anxieties,” he said at the UN’s Palais des Nations in Geneva, where the convention was opened for signature on July 28, 1951.

“Too often, refugees are portrayed as burdens or threats rather than as fellow human beings.”

Some 117.8 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced from their homes at the end of 2025, according to UNHCR, the UN refugee agency — down from 2024’s record 123.2 million.

Of those 117.8 million, 35.6 million were refugees under UNHCR’s mandate, with two-thirds coming from Venezuela, Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan and Sudan.

Last year’s drop was the first in a decade, as conflicts in Iran and Lebanon spurred many refugees hosted there to return home, often under risky circumstances, including to Syria and Afghanistan.