The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Filippo Grandi urged the UN Security Council on Thursday to address the causes of conflicts uprooting people across the world.

While briefing the Security Council, Grandi presented the stark reality the international community now faces, with major new crises causing massive displacement across virtually all regions.

He urged the Council to support measures to address the causes of conflict. He also spoke of the need to fight human trafficking, and sustain the protection of displaced people while solutions to conflict are pursued.

Grandi noted that the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide is now approaching 66 million, up from 42 million in 2009. This includes 17.2 million refugees under UNHCR's responsibility, a 70 percent increase in eight years.

He stressed that securing solutions for the millions of uprooted people, and avoiding a repeat of the massive outflows that have taken place over recent years, ultimately rests on political solutions.

Grandi cited several ongoing crises, including the conflict in Syria and the violence in Iraq, which together accounted for a quarter of all those forcibly displaced.

But new crises have developed, with many unfolding "in ungoverned spaces, driven by varying combinations of poverty and underdevelopment, environmental degradation, inequality and persecution," he said.