Statistics on Refugees

You are here: Home > Human Rights Statistics > Statistics on Xenophobia, Migration & Asylum > Statistics on Refugees

Content

1. Numbers of refugees
2. Geographical breakdown
2.1. Origin countries
2.2. Destination countries
3. Internally displaced persons (IDPs)

1. Numbers of refugees

Estimating the numbers of refugees is difficult. These numbers fluctuate from year to year and even from month to month because refugee flows are caused by war, civil unrest, drought and other events that do not occur regularly or with the same intensity over time. For example, Iraq used to be a major source of refugees during and after the invasion by the U.S., but now, with the troubles in Syria, it is actually receiving refugees. The war in Syria has produced more than 300.000 refugees in 2012. However, those numbers can fall dramatically in 2013 if the conflict is resolved by then.

Hence the habit of giving end-of-year numbers. Those remove at least the in-year fluctuations.

According to data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (HCR), there were roughly 20 million refugees in the world at the end of 2005, 33 million in 2006 and around 10 million in 2010 and 15 million in 2011 (end-of-year). In 2011, there were 800,000 new refugees (people who weren’t already refugees in the year(s) before). That’s the highest number of new refugees in the 21st century.

These numbers are underestimates because they don’t include the 5 million Palestinians refugees looked after in some 60 camps in the Middle East by United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which was set up in 1949 to care for displaced Palestinians. Including those, as well as internally displaced persons (refugees who don’t cross an international border, see below) puts the number of people forcibly displaced worldwide at around 40 million by the end of 2010 and 42 million end of 2011.

(source)

(source)

^ back to top

2. Geographical breakdown

2.1. Origin countries

Three quarters of refugees come from Asia and Africa. The top refugee producing countries are:

(source)

(source)

As these numbers change quickly in proportion with ongoing conflicts, it’s useful to view some older numbers as well:

(source)

These are end of 2010 figures:

(source, where you can find an interactive version)

^ back to top

2.2. Destination countries

(source)

Again, some older data: Pakistan was the top host country in the world for refugees in 2006:

These are end of 2010 figures:

(source, where you can find an interactive version)

^ back to top

3. Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)

Internally Displaced Persons are those who have fled their homes but continue to live in their own countries. The displacement should be protracted in order to count as IDP.  In fact, some 40 countries in the world have situations of protracted internal displacement. In Africa, that’s the case in around 15 countries.

(source)

Africa contains a third of the world’s Internally Displaced Persons. Of the 26 million IDPs in the world at the end of 2011, there were some 9.7 million IDPs in sub-Saharan Africa (down 13 percent from 2010 when there were just over 11 million). Africa has many more IDPs than refugees, nearly five times as many.

Sudan alone had over 2 million IDPs in 2011 (down from 4 million in 2010). Congo has another 2m or so, Somalia at least 1.3m. A score of other countries including Uganda, Zimbabwe and Kenya have hundreds of thousands more.

A report from the Norwegian Refugee Council notes a steady increase in the global population of IDPs, to 27.1m in 2009. In 2012, there were 28.8 million internally displaced people worldwide. This record high includes a five-fold increase in Syria due to the conflict there.

The number of IDPs in Colombia is estimated to be nearly as high as in Sudan. Over 1m are also displaced in Iraq and Pakistan, where recent anti-Taliban assaults by the Pakistani army near the border with Afghanistan have uprooted many civilians. Cyprus, which was split after a Turkish invasion in 1974, has the largest share of its population internally displaced. (source)

(source)

^ back to top