The international migration has grown the last year despite dramatic impact from pandemic of covid, which led some countries to impose restrictions on border crossings. It is one of the main conclusions of the report of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) of the United Nations, which reflects that the number of international migrants grew to 281 million in 2020 or 3.6% of the world population. The figure represents an increase compared to 2019, where 272 million migrants were counted -3.5% of the world population-. But the IOM has pointed out that, without the pandemic, there would have been two million more international migrants last year, as the virus imposed barriers to border transit.
The figure is almost 200 million more what in 1970, when only 84 million international migrants were counted, equivalent to 2.3% of the world population. According to the report, the covid was “the great troublemaker” of migration and mobility in the world.
Only in the first year of the pandemic were some 108,000 travel restrictions, while the number of air passengers fell by 60% up to 1.8 billion in the world, compared to 4.5 billion in 2019. The covid “undoubtedly changed the world and has touched every aspect of migration,” said study author Marie McAuliffe.
Although only a small proportion of the world’s population is made up of international migrants (3.6%), there are wide disparities at the country level. In some countries, such as the United Arab Emirates, more than 88% of the population are international migrants.
Internal displacements
The data of the HIM-HER-IT indicate that the internal displacement in countries due to disasters, conflicts and violence grew strongly last year.
Nails 40.5 million people they were living as internally displaced persons at the end of 2020, up from 31.5 million a year earlier.
The data contained in the study indicate a global increase in remittances -transfers that migrants make directly to their families in the countries of origin- in recent decades, going from 126,000 million US dollars in 2000 to 702,000 million dollars in 2020. Despite predictions of a large decline in international remittances due to covid, in 2020 the drop was slight (2.4%) compared to the world total for 2019.
Related news
In 2020, India, China, Mexico, the Philippines and Egypt were (in descending order) the top five destination countries for remittances, although India and China ranked well above the others, with inflows of more than US $ 83 billion and US $ 59 billion. United, respectively.
The high-income countries they are almost without exception the main sources of remittances. For decades, the United States has consistently ranked first among countries of origin of remittances, and in 2020 they had a total outflow of 68 billion, followed by the United Arab Emirates (43.2 billion), Saudi Arabia (34.6 billion), Switzerland ( 27,960 million) and Germany (22,000 million).
Reference-www.elperiodico.com