Food crisis will drive record displacement levels higher: UN refugee chief

FILE PHOTO: Asylum seekers rescued from Libyan prisons and sent to Rwanda for processing, play at the Emergency Transit Mechanism (ETM) Gashora transit centre, in Bugesera, eastern Rwanda June 10, 2022. Picture taken June 10, 2022. REUTERS/Jean Bizimana/

GENEVA (Reuters) - A food security crisis stoked by the Ukraine war is set to push more people to flee their homes in poorer countries, driving record levels of global displacement even higher, the head of the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) said.

A report by the U.N. body showed on Thursday that some 89.3 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide as a result of persecution, conflict, abuse and violence at the end of 2021. Since then, millions more have fled Ukraine or been displaced within its borders, with price hikes linked to blocked grain exports set to stoke more displacement elsewhere.