Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, other conflicts like those in Syria and Sudan, and climate-fueled crises have pushed the number of people displaced by war, persecution, violence, human rights abuses and other events to a record 110 million, the UN refugee agency said in a new report Tuesday.

The big picture: The upward trend of forced displacement comes as humanitarian response plans and budgets remain severely underfunded. The right to asylum is also “under threat” in some places, and a rising number of compounding factors have made it even harder to provide protection to those most in need, according to UNHCR.

• Last year also exposed the unequal treatment of different refugee groups. Nations, especially in Europe, have been lauded for welcoming Ukrainian refugees with open arms, but some of those same countries have also been criticized for closing their borders to displaced people from other places.
• The new UNHCR report is “quite an indictment on the state of our world,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi told reporters. “We are constantly confronted with emergencies.”

Zoom […]