More than 27 million people in the world have to live in exile.

Natural disasters, poverty, drugs, violence and conflict in 2010 pushed 27.5 million people worldwide into exile within their own countries - the highest number in a decade.

Announcing the results of this latest UN study in Geneva, Switzerland on March 23, the UN Special Representative for Children in Conflict Radhika Coomaraswamy warned that of the total 27.5 million people mentioned above, there are up to 12.2 million children.

A Tunisian man crosses the Ras Jdir border
between Libya and Tunisia to leave Libya. Source: AFP

Nearly 3 million children in 20 countries around the world became newly displaced in 2010 due to conflict and violence. At least 11 countries recruited child soldiers and in at least 18 countries children were subjected to physical and sexual violence.

Elisabeth Rasmussen, chairwoman of the Norwegian Refugee Council, which co-led the study with the United Nations, noted that Africa accounts for 40 percent of the world's 27.5 million internally displaced people, most of whom are in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia.

More than half a million people in Cote d'Ivoire have been forced to flee their homes since December 2010 following a dispute that led to conflict between the outgoing and elected presidents in the country.

The number of displaced people in the Middle East reached 4 million at the end of 2010, a threefold increase in the past decade. The number of displaced people in Asia has increased by 70% in the past five years, largely due to conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The number of people living abroad in Latin America increased from 3.6 to 5.2 million at the end of 2010, mainly victims of organized crime gangs that grow, produce and traffic drugs.

According to VNA