‘In flight through force’: Vatican newspaper draws attention to surging numbers of displaced persons

June 15, 2023

With the headline “In fuga per forza“ [In flight through force], L’Osservatore Romano devoted the most prominent front-page coverage in its June 14 edition to a UN report on the rising number of victims of forced displacement.

“At the end of 2022, 108.4 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations and events seriously disturbing public order,” according to the report from UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. “This represents an increase of 19 million people compared to the end of 2021 ... the largest ever increase between years according to UNHCR’s statistics on forced displacement.”

The UN agency’s statement on the report noted that “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was the top driver of displacement in 2022. The number of refugees soared from 27,300 at the end of 2021, to 5.7 million at the end of 2022—representing the fastest outflow of refugees anywhere since World War II.”

The Vatican newspaper’s emphasis on the new UN report reflects Pope Francis’s own emphasis on addressing the plight of migrants and refugees. While this theme has consistently been part of Catholic social teaching over the past century—the 2023 papal message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees is the 109th—Pope Francis has drawn special attention to this concern, from his journey to the island of Lampedusa less than four months after his election as Pope, to his establishment in 2016 of the Migrants and Refugees Section within the Dicastery for Integral Human Development (“directly under the Pope,” as he said at the time).

 

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Further information:

• In fuga per forza (L’Osservatore Romano)
• UNHCR calls for concerted action as forced displacement hits new high of 110 million (UN News)