IOM: Over 3 million people move to cities every week

GENEVA

Over 3 million people around the world have been moving to cities every week, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in a report released Tuesday

The current worldwide urban population of 3.9 billion is expected to grow to some 6.4 billion by 2050, according to the IOM’s 2015 World Migration Report.

"Over 54 percent of people across the globe were living in urban areas in 2014," said the report.

According to the report, in London, New York and Sydney, migrants represent over a third of the population while in Brussels and Dubai, migrants account for more than half of the population.

There are an estimated 232 million international migrants and 740 million internal migrants in the world, the IOM said.

About 50 percent of international migrants reside in 10 highly urbanized high income countries - Australia, Canada, the U.S., France, Spain, Germany, the U.K., Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the IOM said.