Despite calls for ceasefires and compassion amid the Covid-19 pandemic, violence and persecution have continued to force people from their homes, with record numbers now displaced, the UN said yesterday. 

By the end of 2019, 79.5 million people were living uprooted and displaced, including nearly 30 million refugees -- more than one percent of the world's population. And the UN refugee agency said preliminary figures showed more people had been forced to flee in 2020, pushing the number past 80 million.

"We are now surpassing another bleak milestone that will continue to grow unless world leaders stop wars," UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi said in a statement.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called in March for a global ceasefire while the world fights the pandemic, which has now killed more than 1.5 million people. But while some factions heeded the call, UNHCR said preliminary figures through the first half of 2020 showed that violence in Syria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Somalia and Yemen drove fresh displacement.

Africa's central Sahel region also saw significant new displacement due to brutal violence, including rape and executions, UNHCR said.

The UN agency pointed out that instead of calming conflict, the coronavirus crisis had "disrupted every aspect of human life and severely worsened existing challenges for the forcibly displaced and stateless".