U.N. World Refugee Day: No. of refugees are growing and they rely on the world to survive

As the United Nations observes World Refugee Day on Saturday, Antonio Guterres, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees warned that "a spreading global violence has come to threaten the very foundations of our international system" and urged the world not to ignore those who are in most need of its help. 

"More people fled last year than at any other time in our records. Around the world, almost 60 million have been displaced by conflict and persecution. Nearly 20 million of them are refugees, and more than half are children," he said in a statement.

With the ongoing immigrant crisis, their numbers are growing every day,he said. And they rely on the world to survive.

"They will remember what we do," he said. "Yet, even as this tragedy unfolds, some of the countries most able to help are shutting their gates to people seeking asylum. Borders are closing, pushbacks are increasing, and hostility is rising. Avenues for legitimate escape are fading away."

At the same time, he said, humanitarian organizations like the UNHCR run on shoestring budgets, unable to meet the spiraling needs of such massive numbers of people.

Guterres will accompany actor and special envoy to the UNHCR, Angelina Jolie to Turkey to visit a refugee camp on Saturday, with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Jolie, a special envoy for the UNHCR had previously visited refugee camps in Jordan and Iraq to see the plight of families forced from their homes by Syria's conflict and the recent advance of IS.