The United Nations observes World Refugee Day on June 20 every year. The day honours the courage, strength and determination of women, men and children who are forced to flee their homeland under threat of persecution, conflict and violence. The event is to recognise the contribution refugees have made for their communities. At times when violence forces thousands of people to flee their homes to unknown lands, the World Refugee Day shows support to them. The theme for World Refugee Day 2018 is 'Now More Than Ever, We Need to Stand with Refugees'.

The day is being observed at a time when United President Donald Trump is being criticised for his decision to separate children from their migrated parents at the US-Mexico border. Videos and photos of children crying for their parents who are taken away by force are viral on the internet. The Trump's policy has not just enraged social media users, but people took protests out on large scale against it in the US.

Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugee said, "This is because of protracted conflicts and lack of solutions for those conflicts that continue, continuous pressure on civilians in countries of conflict that pushed them to leave their homes and new or aggravating crises, like the Rohingya crisis."

Here are the shocking facts on refugees revealed by the United Nations:

The UN Refugee Agency launched the hashtag #WithRefugees petition in June 2016 to send a message to governments for co-operation in works related to refugees.

Ahead of the world observance day, the refugee agency reported that nearly 69 million people who have fled war, violence and persecution were forcibly displaced last year.

The overall figure of forced displacements in 2017 rose to 68.5 million as the crisis in South Sudan, Congo, Muslims Rohingya from Myanmar continues. Of that, 16.2 million were displaced last year average of 44,00 people per day.

Turkey continued to be the country with the largest number of refugees with the number being 3.5 million at the end of 2017.

The United States received the most applications for asylum last year that amounted to at 3,32,000. Germany was second at more than 198,000.

Here are some of the Google search trends in the past week in the United Kingdom:

Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council a former at the UN humanitarian aid agency, said cooperation between countries and diplomacy for peace were in "deep crisis". He also said, "International responsibility-sharing for displaced people has utterly collapsed. Rich countries are building walls against families fleeing war, at the same time as less money is available for aid to people in conflict areas."

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 20, 2018 04:03 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).