An average of 42,500 people a day fled their homes last year, becoming refugees or asylum-seekers in foreign countries or being internally displaced within their own countries, a U.N. report released on Thursday said.
Nearly 60 million people were forcibly displaced by the end of 2014, versus roughly 51 million the year before, the U.N. refugee agency said in the report. Over half them were children.
The global refugee crisis hit its worst levels since the Second World War in 2013, the BBC reported at the time, and the number of refugees has continued to rise since.
The civil war in Syria, which entered its fifth year in March, is the biggest reason for the rapidly rising numbers of people fleeing their homes, according to the report.
Syria's conflict has caused over half of its population to flee since 2011, with 7.6 million people displaced within the country and almost 4 million ending up in other countries as of the end of 2014.
Worldwide, 1 in every 122 humans is now either a refugee or asylum-seeker abroad or is internally displaced in their home country, the report said.