42 million (more than): the number of people forcibly displaced at the end of 2008, including 15.2 million refugees, 827,000 asylum seekers and 26 million internally displaced persons.
75,000: the estimated number of southerners that have moved south from Northern Sudan, according to the UN, aboard makeshift convoys of trucks, buses and barges. Some have come to vote and others to escape a feared backlash in the Muslim-dominated north over a referendum in the south which will decide whether to divide Africa’s largest country under the terms of a 2005 peace deal that ended the continent’s longest civil war.
25,000: the number of people who fled from Burma into the Thai town of Mae Sot in a single day, November 8 this year, in response to fighting that broke out after the fraudulent Burma elections.
1959: the number of Burmese asylum seekers granted offshore humanitarian visas for 2009-2010, the highest of any other nationality, according to this Immigration Department fact sheet.
30,560: the number of media mentions the Christmas island boat disaster received between December 14-20, according to Media Monitors.
30: the number of bodies the AFP have confirmed as recovered from the Christmas Island tragedy so far. Between 15 and 20 people remain unaccounted for, taking the possible death toll to 50. Prime Minister Gillard says the total number on board the boat may never be known.
146: the number of children known to have perished, along with about 142 women and 65 men, when SIEV X (Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel X) sank inside the Australian aerial border protection surveillance zone in 2001.
14,000: the approximate number of deaths from 1993 to 2010 of asylum seekers attempting to enter Europe, or during detention or forcible deportation. Drowning accounts for well over half the deaths recorded by European non-government organisations, according to a story in today’s Sydney Morning Herald. Other significant causes are suffocation, vehicle accidents, exposure and suicide.
1,740,711: the number of refugees under UN refugee agency the UNHCR’s mandate between 2005 and 2009 hosted by Pakistan. Pakistan led the pack, followed by Iran (1,070,488), Syria (1,054,466), Germany (593,799) and Jordan (450,756), according to the UNHCR’s 2009 Global Trends report.
47: the percentage of people deemed refugees by UNHCR that the five major refugee-hosting countries accounted for.
13,750: Australia’s current annual humanitarian refugee intake.
27,000: the number of refugees that independent MP Andrew Wilkie alleges opposition leader Tony Abbott pledged (roughly double the current humanitarian intake) in a bid to gain his support. Abbott denies this.
***
Thank you Crikey, for shedding some light and perspective on the issue.
I think statistics presented in this manner actually work in favour of conservative politics. People who feel ´threatened´by asylum seekers aren´t so much preocuppied with the numbers actually arriving but by the possibility of much larger numbers – judge that how you will.
15.2 million refugees in the camps
13,750 Humanitarian spots per year for Australian resettlement
6300 Humanitarian spots stolen by 6300 queue jumpers this year from real refugee’s sitting in real refugee camps.
Stop the boats, stop the costs, stop the deaths and stop the injustice of real refugee’s from the camps missing out on resettlement in Australia.
There are 6,000 refugees who are being paid for by us to double dip. Resettlement is nothing to do with the refugee convention as the people are already refugees in another country and until their protection is withdrawn they are not entitled to further protection in other countries.
We lie and we lie and the media all repeat the lies endlessly – the refugee convention only applies to those who are asylum seekers who DO NOT HAVE PROTECTION.
Once people have protection they are not legally covered by any law or convention which is why only 1% are ever accepted.
Except here we use the double ganger game.
First we claim that it is asylum seekers who are not entitled to come because we “accept” 6,000 “refugees” from other countries. The conditions for acceptance are so harsh it is a wonder we accept anyone at all as we consider ourselves absolutely the country of last resort upon which time we will accept a few people if they have family and a good education.
Then we jail asylum seekers in Indonesia, pay for the UNHCR, the international organisation of migration who are mercenaries paid to move people across borders without papers or jail them in other countries and we claim we can’t accept refugees from Indonesia because they “have protection”.
Though why we accepted 17 Afghans from Washington and only 2 from Indonesia last year remains a complete mystery.
Now DIAC have miraculously found 2 aunties for the little orphan boy and will reunite them in prison.
Table 43: Number of final protection visa grants by citizenship of top 10 countries
in 2009–101 compared to 2007–08 and 2008–09
Country of
citizenship
2007–08r Final
grant rate
2008–09r Final
grant rate
2009–10 Final
grant rate
1. Afghanistan – 31 96.9% 224 98.7% 1514 99.7%
2. Sri Lanka – 434 90.8% 364 90.1% 505 87.8%
3. People’s Republic
of China
415 37.8% 426 31.5% 492 42.0%
4. Iraq 220 96.9% 172 96.1% 321 97.3%
5. Iran 98 92.5% 146 89.0% 282 98.3%
6. Zimbabwe 87 79.8% 215 90.3% 255 85.3%
7. Pakistan 117 73.6% 158 76.7% 218 84.2%
8. Stateless 2 5 62.5% 19 86.4% 192 98.5%
9. Egypt 37 62.7% 45 56.3% 79 71.2%
10. Burma 56 91.8% 78 94.0% 78 96.3%
Other 432 25.4% 535 26.1% 579 29.4%
Total 1 932 47.8% 2 382 47.6% 4 515 66.5%
1. Final protection visa grants include grants made at the conclusion of all merits and judicial review processes.
2. A stateless person is an individual who lacks identity as a national of a state for the purpose of law and is not
entitled to the rights, benefits, or protection ordinarily available to a country’s nationals. Statelessness is established
where no country recognises the person as holding its citizenship.
r. These figures were revised as at 2 July 2010 to include the latest information, including changes arising from late
reporting and data cleansing. The figures therefore may differ from statistics previously published.
114 Annual Report 2009–10
Figure
So where is the massive decrease in Afghan cases and Sri Lankans.
Why are we wasting hundreds of millions to jail people from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iran and Iraq who usually are just refugees?
And why do we whine incessantly about having to grant 13,770 visas to refugees and others when we granted
3,416,576 tourist visas, 9897 per day
269,828 foreign students, 739
183,161 working holiday visas 501
107,868 skilled workers 295
60,254 family visas 165
35,590 regional worker visas 97
4,073,277 Total 11,159 daily
Refugees equal 37 per day with 24 of them by air.
So why do we whinge and whine and maunder on endlessly about 20 refugees a day by sea.