Refugee resistance
Wed 19 Apr 2006
Refugee numbers are at their lowest for 25 years. So why are so many western governments getting more hostile to them?
The number of refugees and asylum seekers across the world has dropped dramatically in the last five years according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees or UNHCR.
The report states that there are now 9 point 2 million refugees - the lowest amount for 25 years. This is due to people returning to countries such as Afghanistan where 4 million people have now gone home. Hundreds of thousands more have returned to Angola, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
But the report states the dynamic of refugees is changing and the international community's "biggest failure" is the issue of internal displacement.
More 4 filmed exclusive pictures in Sudan - one of the countries where people displaced because of two decades of civil war continue to suffer.
There are seven and a half million people internally displaced here and in the Democratic Republic of Congo - across the world there are 25 million.
The issue is not covered by the Refugee Convention and UNHCR has expanded its role to cover it.
Earlier I spoke to the High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres and began by asking him what the UN can do for people who are internally displaced.
