Refugees expected to top 60m in 2015

The number of people forcibly displaced worldwide is likely to have "far surpassed" a record 60 million this year, mainly driven by the Syrian war and other protracted conflicts, the United Nations said on Friday.

The estimated figure includes 20.2 million refugees fleeing wars and persecution, the most since 1992, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said in a report.

Nearly 2.5 million asylum seekers have requests pending, with Germany, Russia and the US receiving the highest numbers of the nearly 1 million new claims lodged in the first half of the year, it said.