The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Friday said that the number of refugees has exceeded 50 million globally for the first time since World War II, media reported.

“We are witnessing a quantum leap in forced displacement in the world,” The Guardian quoted António Guterres, head of the UN’s refugee agency, as saying after the annual UNHCR global trends report revealed that there were a total of 51.2 million refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced people across the world.

If displaced people had their own country, it would be the 24th most populous in the world, noted the British daily.

The UNHCR report also expressed concern that half the world’s refugees are children, many travelling alone or in groups in a desperate quest for sanctuary, and often falling into the clutches of traffickers.

There has been an increase of six million over the 2012 figures, which is mainly driven by the war in Syria. By the end of last year, 2.5 million Syrians had fled the strife-hit country and 6.5 million were internally displaced — more than 40 percent of the population, according to the report.

Conflicts in the Central African Republic and South Sudan also contributed to rising numbers.

Other factors that forced people to leave their homes included climate change, population growth, urbanisation, food insecurity and water scarcity.