Geneva, June 19 (RHC)--The number of people forced to flee their homes last year rose by nearly three million to 68.5 million, the head of the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Tuesday, warning that the world’s displacement hotspots “are becoming hotter”.

Citing ongoing, protracted violence around the globe and a lack of solutions to conflicts as reasons for the increase, Filippo Grandi said that “continuous pressure on civilians” caught up in fighting, had pushed them to leave their homes.

More than two thirds of all refugees worldwide originated from only a handful of countries, the High Commissioner told journalists in Geneva.

Top of the list is Syria, where seven years of brutal fighting have forced more than 6 million people to seek shelter abroad, followed by Afghanistan (2.6 million) and South Sudan (2.4 million).

At least 53 percent of the total displaced are children, including many who are unaccompanied, according to the Global Trends report.

UNHCR said the figures debunk a flawed perception that a refugee crisis has affected more developed countries in the "Global North".

According to the UNHCR, four out of five refugees lived in countries bordering the homes they fled.