By Anjali Sharma
UNITED NATIONS – UN refugee agency on Tuesday said taht the protection for refugees has been enshrined in international law for more than 7 decades, but how much support is there today for those fleeing conflict and persecution?
UN agency said that most people still support the right to seek asylum, resettlement numbers decrease massively, misinformation has not eroded public compassion and the Refugee Convention marks 75 years of protection.
UNHCR in a new data released unveiled a new data said that despite a growing volume of fake news and hate speech about asylum seekers, public support for refugees is stronger than public debate often suggests.
UNHCR’s Director of External Relations said Dominique Hyde, said that the support has remained broadly stable for years, “despite political tension, economic pressure, and as you all know very well, a very polarized debate”.
The agency found that two in three people across 29 countries agreed that those fleeing war or persecution should be able to seek refuge in another country together with pollster Ipsos,
Trinh Tu, Managing Director of Ipsos UK said “Many of these people are the same people; they hold both views at the same time,”.
“What we see at the moment is a tension between people wanting to support those in desperate need at the same time as having doubts about whether the system is working as it should,” in particular, asylum systems, border management and integration, Ms. Tu explained.
She added that this perspective seems to prevail in the UK, where “we’ve got the lowest net migration in Britain, but at the same time, half of the population thinks that actually immigration has gone mad”, even though the facts show otherwise, she added.
UNHCR’s Ms. Hyde noted that support for asylum seekers remains relatively strong. In Türkiye and Poland, support is not as strong as in previous years In Germany and Sweden, where refugee intake is “quite sizeable.”
She insisted on the need for continued international support for asylum seekers.
Ms. Hyde cited the difficulties many countries face trying to host tens of thousands of people fleeing conflict. “Generosity cannot replace this international responsibility,”.
She described visiting Busuma camp in eastern Burundi, which shelters more than 57,000 Congolese refugees who have fled intense fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Only around four in 10 people had somewhere to stay, despite the harsh conditions at 2,000 metres.
“I sat with mothers, I sat with fathers who had barely enough to eat,” Ms. Hyde said. “I listened to families describe their overcrowded shelters, if they were lucky enough to have a shelter. I spoke to families about how unsafe they felt the water was. And not just unsafe not sufficient. And nights spent, in exposed cold because it was at 2000 metres of altitude, and in the day, just sheer heat.”
Over 21,500 people surveyed, younger respondents are far more positive about refugees than Baby Boomers.
Almost half of Gen Z (born 1997 – 2012) believe that refugees will successfully integrate, compared with 39 per cent of Baby Boomers (1946 –1964).
“Gen Z respondents were less likely to support border closures or express doubts about refugees’ motivations. Even so, concerns about integration, border management and the authenticity of asylum claims remained to some degree across age groups,” UNHCR said.
UNHCR-Ipsos survey indicated that support for refugees is strongest in Sweden and the Netherlands (78 per cent), followed by Spain (76 per cent). Australia, Brazil and the United States expressed the most positive views on the benefits of refugee integration.
Some countries showed distinct shifts over time, including in Japan, where support for people seeking refuge rose to 64% from 23% in 2019, and in France, where it has climbed to 68 per cent from 43 per cent over the same period.
On specific displacement situations and how they would prefer to respond, people prioritized direct emergency assistance, alongside diplomatic action and temporary protection.
The findings suggest that many people believe that refugee protection should include more alternatives than resettlement, although this remains a vital protection pathway for the most vulnerable refugees, 75 years after the Refugee Convention was adopted in Geneva.
“What we know is that many people support the right to seek safety while also questioning whether asylum systems are fair, efficient, and properly managed,” said Ms. Hyde. “This is an important message for this anniversary, 75 years on, the challenge is not only to defend the Convention, but also to make sure that the promise works.”
In 2025, conflicts, violence and persecution continued to force millions of people from their homes, while climate shocks, economic instability and political fragility deepened needs.
UNHCR aimed to protect and assist 129.4 million people, close to 2024 levels.
The available resources fell by $1.2 billion to $3.9 billion.
UNHCR had to respond to the same level of need with resources last seen in 2016, when the global population of forcibly displaced and stateless people was less than half its current size.
UNHCR supported over 37,000 refugees to depart for resettlement in third countries in 2025, mainly from Türkiye, Lebanon, Ethiopia, Bangladesh and Rwanda.
The agency submitted 35,000 refugees for resettlement to 23 States, including 1,181 unallocated quota places for refugees requiring expedited processing or those in countries with limited or no quotas.
The number of submissions last year to States for resettlement fell significantly from 188,800 in 2024.
