UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said the number of refugees worldwide rose to a two-decade high in 2012.
An estimated 7.6 million people around the world were displaced due to conflict or persecution in 2012, including 1.1 million refugees and 6.5 million people who were displaced within their own countries, according to the Global Trends report launched by the UN.
The number of displaced people was 42.5 million in 2011 while the figure reached 45.2 million in 2012.
"These truly are alarming numbers. They reflect individual suffering on a huge scale and they reflect the difficulties of the international community in preventing conflicts and promoting timely solutions for them," Guterres said. "There is a new displaced person every 4.1 seconds."
Guterres said wars were the main reasons of displacement, adding 55 percent of all refugees came from five countries including Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Syria and Sudan. The UNHCR helped 2.7 million people get back to their countries in 2012, he said.
Turkey hosted 307,700 displaced Syrians in 2012 and 68,600 of whom returned Syria, according to the report.
A total of 267,100 displaced people both Syrian and other nationals fled to Turkey in 2012 and these figures show that Turkey ranks the tenth in the world hosting refugees.
Every four refugees comes from Afghanistan and this makes Afghanistan the world's biggest source of refugees, a position it has now held for 32 years, with 95 percent of Afghan refugees located in either Iran or Pakistan.
Somalia has the second biggest groups of refugees followed by Iraq.
