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Refugees and internally displaced persons
This entry includes those persons residing in a country as refugees, internally displaced persons (IDPs), or stateless persons. Each country's refugee entry includes only countries of origin that are the source of refugee populations of 5,000 or more. The definition of a refugee according to a UN Convention is "a person who is outside his/her country of nationality or habitual residence; has a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion; and is unable or unwilling to avail himself/herself of the protection of that country, or to return there, for fear of persecution." The UN established the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 1950 to handle refugee matters worldwide. The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has a different operational definition for a Palestinian refugee: "a person whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948 and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict." However, UNHCR also assists some 400,000 Palestinian refugees not covered under the UNRWA definition. The term "internally displaced person" is not specifically covered in the UN Convention; it is used to describe people who have fled their homes for reasons similar to refugees, but who remain within their own national territory and are subject to the laws of that state. A stateless person is defined as someone who is not considered a national by any state under the operation of its law, according to UN convention.
| Country | Refugees and internally displaced persons |
|---|---|
| Afghanistan |
refugees (country of origin):
72,191 (Pakistan) (2019)
IDPs:
2.993 million (mostly Pashtuns and Kuchis displaced in the south and west due to natural disasters and political instability) (2019)
|
| Albania |
stateless persons:
3,687 (2019)
note: 11,365 estimated refugee and migrant arrivals (January 2015-November 2020)
|
| Algeria |
refugees (country of origin):
more than 100,000 (Western Saharan Sahrawi, mostly living in Algerian-sponsored camps in the southwestern Algerian town of Tindouf) (2018); 7,757 (Syria) (2019)
|
| Angola |
refugees (country of origin):
23,395 (Democratic Republic of the Congo) (refugees and asylum seekers) (2020)
|
| Argentina |
refugees (country of origin):
213,769 (Venezuela) (economic and political crisis; includes Venezuelans who have claimed asylum, are recognized as refugees, or have received alternative legal stay) (2020)
|
| Armenia |
refugees (country of origin):
14,730 (Syria - ethnic Armenians) (2019)
stateless persons:
961 (2019)
|
| Australia |
refugees (country of origin):
13,122 (Iraq), 12,714 (Afghanistan), 12,537 (Iran), 5,578 (Pakistan) (2019)
stateless persons:
132 (2018)
|
| Austria |
refugees (country of origin):
51,955 (Syria), 37,276 (Afghanistan), 8,664 (Russia), 8,568 (Iraq), 7,636 (Somalia), 6,393 (Iran) (2018)
stateless persons:
1,132 (2019)
|
| Azerbaijan |
IDPs:
351,000 (conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh; IDPs are mainly ethnic Azerbaijanis but also include ethnic Kurds, Russians, and Turks predominantly from occupied territories around Nagorno-Karabakh; includes IDPs' descendants, returned IDPs, and people living in insecure areas and excludes people displaced by natural disasters; around half the IDPs live in the capital Baku) (2019)
stateless persons:
3,585 (2019)
|
| Bangladesh |
refugees (country of origin):
861,545 (Burma) (2020) (includes an estimated 712,152 Rohingya refugees who have fled conflict since 25 August 2017)
IDPs:
427,000 (conflict, development, human rights violations, religious persecution, natural disasters) (2019)
|
| Belarus |
stateless persons:
6,466 (2019)
|
| Belgium |
refugees (country of origin):
16,604 (Syria), 5,602 (Iraq), 5,070 (Afghanistan) (2019)
stateless persons:
10,933 (2019)
|
| Bosnia and Herzegovina |
refugees (country of origin):
5,116 (Croatia) (2019)
IDPs:
99,000 (Bosnian Croats, Serbs, and Bosniaks displaced by inter-ethnic violence, human rights violations, and armed conflict during the 1992-95 war) (2019)
stateless persons:
75 (2019)
note: 69,102 estimated refugee and migrant arrivals (January 2015-December 2020)
|
| Brazil |
refugees (country of origin):
251,832 (Venezuela) (economic and political crisis; includes Venezuelans who have claimed asylum, are recognized as refugees, or received alternative legal stay) (2020)
stateless persons:
7 (2019)
|
| Brunei |
stateless persons:
20,863 (2019); note - thousands of stateless persons, often ethnic Chinese, are permanent residents and their families have lived in Brunei for generations; obtaining citizenship is difficult and requires individuals to pass rigorous tests on Malay culture, customs, and language; stateless residents receive an International Certificate of Identity, which enables them to travel overseas; the government is considering changing the law prohibiting non-Bruneians, including stateless permanent residents, from owning land
|
| Bulgaria |
refugees (country of origin):
17,551 (Syria) (2019)
stateless persons:
116 (2019)
note: 58,294 estimated refugee and migrant arrivals (January 2015-November 2020); Bulgaria is predominantly a transit country |
| Burkina Faso |
refugees (country of origin):
20,951 (Mali) (2020)
IDPs:
921,471 (2020) |
| Burma |
IDPs:
457,000 (government offensives against armed ethnic minority groups near its borders with China and Thailand, natural disasters, forced land evictions) (2019)
stateless persons:
600,000 (2019); note - Rohingya Muslims, living predominantly in Rakhine State, are Burma's main group of stateless people; the Burmese Government does not recognize the Rohingya as a "national race" and stripped them of their citizenship under the 1982 Citizenship Law, categorizing them as "non-nationals" or "foreign residents"; under the Rakhine State Action Plan drafted in October 2014, the Rohingya must demonstrate their family has lived in Burma for at least 60 years to qualify for a lesser naturalized citizenship and the classification of Bengali or be put in detention camps and face deportation; native-born but non-indigenous people, such as Indians, are also stateless; the Burmese Government does not grant citizenship to children born outside of the country to Burmese parents who left the country illegally or fled persecution, such as those born in Thailand; the number of stateless persons has decreased dramatically since late 2017 because hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since 25 August 2017 to escape violence
note: estimate does not include stateless IDPs or stateless persons in IDP-like situations because they are included in estimates of IDPs (2017) |
| Burundi |
refugees (country of origin):
77,757 (Democratic Republic of the Congo) (refugees and asylum seekers) (2020)
IDPs:
135,058 (some ethnic Tutsis remain displaced from intercommunal violence that broke out after the 1,993 coup and fighting between government forces and rebel groups; violence since April 2015) (2020)
stateless persons:
974 (2019)
|
| Cabo Verde |
stateless persons:
115 (2019)
|
| Cambodia |
stateless persons:
57,444 (2019)
|
| Cameroon |
refugees (country of origin):
314,780 (Central African Republic), 116,960 (Nigeria) (2020)
IDPs:
1,032,942 (2020) (includes far north, northwest, and southwest)
|
| Canada |
refugees (country of origin):
7,356 (Colombia), 6,640 (Nigeria), 6,563 (Haiti), 6,060 (China), 5,876 (Turkey), 5,498 (Pakistan) (2018); 6,751 (Venezuela) (economic and political crisis; includes Venezuelans who have claimed asylum, are recognized as refugees, or have received alternative legal stay) (2019)
stateless persons:
3,790 (2019)
|
| Central African Republic |
refugees (country of origin):
5,555 (Democratic Republic of Congo) (2020)
IDPs:
684,004 (clashes between army and rebel groups since 2005; tensions between ethnic groups) (2020)
|
| Chad |
refugees (country of origin):
361,945 (Sudan), 95,023 (Central African Republic), 15,985 (Nigeria) (2020)
IDPs:
236,426 (majority are in the east) (2020)
|
| Chile |
refugees (country of origin):
475,688 (Venezuela) (economic and political crisis; includes Venezuelans who have claimed asylum or have received alternative legal stay) (2020)
|
| China |
refugees (country of origin):
303,095 (Vietnam), undetermined (North Korea) (2019)
IDPs:
undetermined (2014)
|
| Colombia |
refugees (country of origin):
768,714 (Venezuela) (economic and political crisis; includes Venezuelans who have claimed asylum, are recognized as refugees, or received alternative legal stay)(2020)
IDPs:
7,967,965 (conflict between government and illegal armed groups and drug traffickers since 1985; about 300,000 new IDPs each year since 2000) (2020)
stateless persons:
11 (2019)
|
| Congo, Democratic Republic of the |
refugees (country of origin):
172,234 (Central African Republic), 214,777 (Rwanda) (refugees and asylum seekers), 89,401 (South Sudan) (refugees and asylum seekers), 48,824 (Burundi) (2020)
IDPs:
5.512 million (fighting between government forces and rebels since mid-1990s; conflict in Kasai region since 2016) (2019)
|
| Congo, Republic of the |
refugees (country of origin):
20,700 (Central African Republic), 19,780 (Democratic Republic of the Congo) (refugees and asylum seekers) (2020)
IDPs:
304,430 (multiple civil wars since 1992) (2020)
|
| Costa Rica |
refugees (country of origin):
13,517 (Venezuela) (economic and political crisis; includes Venezuelans who have claimed asylum, are recognized as refugees, or received alternative legal stay) (2020)
stateless persons:
231 (2019)
|
| Cote d'Ivoire |
IDPs:
303,000 (post-election conflict in 2010-11, as well as civil war from 2002-04; land disputes; most pronounced in western and southwestern regions) (2019)
stateless persons:
955,399 (2019); note - many Ivoirians lack documentation proving their nationality, which prevent them from accessing education and healthcare; birth on Ivorian soil does not automatically result in citizenship; disputes over citizenship and the associated rights of the large population descended from migrants from neighboring countries is an ongoing source of tension and contributed to the country's 2002 civil war; some observers believe the government's mass naturalizations of thousands of people over the last couple of years is intended to boost its electoral support base; the government in October 2013 acceded to international conventions on statelessness and in August 2013 reformed its nationality law, key steps to clarify the nationality of thousands of residents; since the adoption of the Abidjan Declaration to eradicate statelessness in West Africa in February 2015, 6,400 people have received nationality papers
|
| Croatia |
stateless persons:
2,886 (2019)
note: 713,772 estimated refugee and migrant arrivals (January 2015-October 2020); flows slowed considerably in 2017; Croatia is predominantly a transit country and hosts about 340 asylum seekers as of the end of June 2018 |
| Cyprus |
refugees (country of origin):
7,372 (Syria) (2019)
IDPs:
228,000 (both Turkish and Greek Cypriots; many displaced since 1974) (2019)
note: 10,690 estimated refugee and migrant arrivals (January 2015-November 2019)
|
| Czechia |
stateless persons:
1,394 (2019)
|
| Denmark |
refugees (country of origin):
20,046 (Syria), 5,320 (Eritrea) (2019)
stateless persons:
8,672 (2019)
|
| Djibouti |
refugees (country of origin):
12,139 (Somalia) (2020)
|
| Dominican Republic |
refugees (country of origin):
8,119 (Venezuela) (economic and political crisis; includes Venezuelans who have claimed asylum or have received alternative legal stay) (2019)
stateless persons:
133,770 (2016); note - a September 2013 Constitutional Court ruling revoked the citizenship of those born after 1929 to immigrants without proper documentation, even though the constitution at the time automatically granted citizenship to children born in the Dominican Republic and the 2010 constitution provides that constitutional provisions cannot be applied retroactively; the decision overwhelmingly affected people of Haitian descent whose relatives had come to the Dominican Republic since the 1890s as a cheap source of labor for sugar plantations; a May 2014 law passed by the Dominican Congress regularizes the status of those with birth certificates but will require those without them to prove they were born in the Dominican Republic and to apply for naturalization; the government has issued documents to thousands of individuals who may claim citizenship under this law, but no official estimate has been released
note: revised estimate includes only individuals born to parents who were both born abroad; it does not include individuals born in the country to one Dominican-born and one foreign-born parent or subsequent generations of individuals of foreign descent; the estimate, as such, does not include all stateless persons (2015) |
| Ecuador |
refugees (country of origin):
102,928 (Colombia) (2019); 207,324 (Venezuela) (economic and political crisis; includes Venezuelans who have claimed asylum, are recognized as refugees, or have received alternative legal stay) (2020)
|
| Egypt |
refugees (country of origin):
70,010 (West Bank and Gaza Strip) (2019); 130,187 (Syria) (refugees and asylum seekers), 49,290 (Sudan) (refugees and asylum seekers), 19,814 (South Sudan) (refugees and asylum seekers), 19,200 (Eritrea) (refugees and asylum seekers), 16,181 (Ethiopia) (refugees and asylum seekers), 9,259 (Yemen) (refugees and asylum seekers), 6,824 (Iraq) (refugees and asylum seekers), 6,755 (Somalia) (refugees and asylum seekers) (2020)
IDPs:
97,000 (2019)
stateless persons:
5 (2019)
|
| El Salvador |
IDPs:
71,500 (2018)
|
| Estonia |
stateless persons:
75,599 (2019); note - following independence in 1991, automatic citizenship was restricted to those who were Estonian citizens prior to the 1940 Soviet occupation and their descendants; thousands of ethnic Russians remained stateless when forced to choose between passing Estonian language and citizenship tests or applying for Russian citizenship; one reason for demurring on Estonian citizenship was to retain the right of visa-free travel to Russia; stateless residents can vote in local elections but not general elections; stateless parents who have been lawful residents of Estonia for at least five years can apply for citizenship for their children before they turn 15 years old
|
| Ethiopia |
refugees (country of origin):
362,787 (South Sudan), 202,217 (Somalia), 178,559 (Eritrea), 43,729 (Sudan) (2020)
IDPs:
1,735,481 (includes conflict- and climate-induced IDPs, excluding unverified estimates from the Amhara region; border war with Eritrea from 1998-2000; ethnic clashes; and ongoing fighting between the Ethiopian military and separatist rebel groups in the Somali and Oromia regions; natural disasters; intercommunal violence; most IDPs live in Sumale state) (2019)
|
| Finland |
refugees (country of origin):
8,862 (Iraq) (2019)
stateless persons:
2,801 (2019)
|
| France |
refugees (country of origin):
24,293 (Afghanistan), 23,821 (Sri Lanka), 18,473 (Sudan), 18,244 (Syria), 17,512 (Democratic Republic of the Congo), 16,412 (Russia), 14,141 (Serbia and Kosovo), 11,863 (Turkey), 11,038 (Guinea), 11,021 (Cambodia), 8,829 (Iraq), 7,735 (Vietnam), 6,918 (China), 6,464 (Laos), 6,372 (Eritrea), 6,156 (Bangladesh), 5,675 (Mauritania), 5,652 (Cote d'Ivoire), 5,169 (Mali) (2019)
stateless persons:
1,521 (2019)
|
| Gaza Strip |
refugees (country of origin):
1,460,315 (Palestinian refugees) (2020)
IDPs:
243,000 (includes persons displaced within the Gaza Strip due to the intensification of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since June 2014 and other Palestinian IDPs in the Gaza Strip and West Bank who fled as long ago as 1967, although confirmed cumulative data do not go back beyond 2006) (2019)
|
| Georgia |
IDPs:
301,000 (displaced in the 1990s as a result of armed conflict in the breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia; displaced in 2008 by fighting between Georgia and Russia over South Ossetia) (2019)
stateless persons:
559 (2019)
|
| Germany |
refugees (country of origin):
572,818 (Syria), 141,650 (Iraq), 140,366 (Afghanistan), 58,569 (Eritrea), 43,244 (Iran), 28,470 (Turkey), 26,015 (Somalia), 8,722 (Russia), 8,639 (Serbia and Kosovo), 8,125 (Pakistan), 7,828 (Nigeria) (2019)
stateless persons:
14,947 (2019)
|
| Ghana |
refugees (country of origin):
6,406 (Cote d'Ivoire) (flight from 2010 post-election fighting) (2020)
|
| Greece |
refugees (country of origin):
26,696 (Syria), 17,685 (Afghanistan), 9,614 (Afghanistan) (2019)
stateless persons:
4,734 (2019)
note: 1,204,745 estimated refugee and migrant arrivals (January 2015-November 2020); as of the end of December 2019, an estimated 112,300 migrants and refugees were stranded in Greece since 2015-16; 50,215 migrant arrivals in 2018 |
| Guatemala |
IDPs:
242,000 (more than three decades of internal conflict that ended in 1996 displaced mainly the indigenous Maya population and rural peasants; ongoing drug cartel and gang violence) (2019)
|
| Guinea-Bissau |
refugees (country of origin):
7,696 (Senegal) (2020)
|
| Haiti |
IDPs:
34,508 (includes only IDPs from the 2010 earthquake living in camps or camp-like situations; information is lacking about IDPs living outside of camps or who have left camps) (2019)
stateless persons:
2,992 (2018); note - individuals without a nationality who were born in the Dominican Republic prior to January 2010
|
| Honduras |
IDPs:
247,000 (violence, extortion, threats, forced recruitment by urban gangs between 2004 and 2018) (2019)
|
| Hungary |
refugees (country of origin):
5,950 applicants for forms of legal stay other than asylum (Ukraine) (2015)
stateless persons:
76 (2019)
note: 432,744 estimated refugee and migrant arrivals (January 2015-December 2018); Hungary is predominantly a transit country and hosts 137 migrants and asylum seekers as of the end of June 2018; 1,626 migrant arrivals in 2017 |
| Iceland |
stateless persons:
48 (2019)
|
| India |
refugees (country of origin):
108,008 (Tibet/China), 59,428 (Sri Lanka), 18,813 (Burma), 7,470 (Afghanistan) (2019)
IDPs:
470,000 (armed conflict and intercommunal violence) (2019)
stateless persons:
17,730 (2019)
|
| Indonesia |
refugees (country of origin):
6,098 (Afghanistan) (2018)
IDPs:
40,000 (inter-communal, inter-faith, and separatist violence between 1998 and 2004 in Aceh and Papua; religious attacks and land conflicts in 2007 and 2013; most IDPs in Aceh, Maluku, East Nusa Tengarra) (2019)
stateless persons:
582 (2019)
|
| Iran |
refugees (country of origin):
2.5-3.0 (1 million registered, 1.5-2.0 million undocumented) (Afghanistan) (2015); 28,268 (Iraq) (2019)
|
| Iraq |
refugees (country of origin):
15,167 (Turkey), 7,858 (West Bank and Gaza Strip), 5,041 (Iran) (2018); 241,682 (Syria) (2020)
IDPs:
1,389,540 (displacement in central and northern Iraq since January 2014) (2020)
stateless persons:
47,253 (2019); note - in the 1970s and 1980s under SADDAM Husayn's regime, thousands of Iraq's Faili Kurds, followers of Shia Islam, were stripped of their Iraqi citizenship, had their property seized by the government, and many were deported; some Faili Kurds had their citizenship reinstated under the 2,006 Iraqi Nationality Law, but others lack the documentation to prove their Iraqi origins; some Palestinian refugees persecuted by the SADDAM regime remain stateless
note: estimate revised to reflect the reduction of statelessness in line with Law 26 of 2006, which allows stateless persons to apply for nationality in certain circumstances; more accurate studies of statelessness in Iraq are pending (2015) |
| Ireland |
stateless persons:
99 (2019)
|
| Israel |
refugees (country of origin):
12,181 (Eritrea), 5,061 (Ukraine) (2019)
stateless persons:
42 (2019)
|
| Italy |
refugees (country of origin):
25,241 (Nigeria), 20,063 (Pakistan), 17,849 (Afghanistan), 15,842 (Mali), 14,029 (Somalia), 12,968 (Gambia), 8,974 (Bangladesh), 7,659 (Cote d'Ivoire), 7,644 (Senegal), 7,118 (Eritrea), 6,995 (Iraq), 6,353 (Ukraine), 5,953 (Ghana) (2019); note - estimate for Ukraine represents asylum applicants since the beginning of the Ukraine crisis in 2014 to July 2018
stateless persons:
15,822 (2019)
note: 522,800 estimated refugee and migrant arrivals by sea (January 2015-December 2020); hosts an estimated 96,862 migrants and asylum seekers as of the end of October 2019 |
| Japan |
stateless persons:
687 (2019)
|
| Jordan |
refugees (country of origin):
2,272,411 (Palestinian refugees), 661,997 (Syria), 66,835 (Iraq), 14,640 (Yemen), 6,098 Sudan (2020)
|
| Kazakhstan |
stateless persons:
8,386 (2019)
|
| Kenya |
refugees (country of origin):
266,544 (Somalia) (refugees and asylum seekers), 123,339 (South Sudan) (refugees and asylum seekers), 44,836 (Democratic Republic of the Congo) (refugees and asylum seekers), 28,836 (Ethiopia) (refugees and asylum seekers), 16,010 (Burundi) (refugees and asylum seekers), 10,007 (Sudan) (refugees and asylum seekers) (2020)
IDPs:
162,000 (election-related violence, intercommunal violence, resource conflicts, al-Shabaab attacks in 2017 and 2018) (2019)
stateless persons:
18,500 (2019); note - the stateless population consists of Nubians, Kenyan Somalis, and coastal Arabs; the Nubians are descendants of Sudanese soldiers recruited by the British to fight for them in East Africa more than a century ago; Nubians did not receive Kenyan citizenship when the country became independent in 1963; only recently have Nubians become a formally recognized tribe and had less trouble obtaining national IDs; Galjeel and other Somalis who have lived in Kenya for decades are included with more recent Somali refugees and denied ID cards
|
| Korea, North |
IDPs:
undetermined (periodic flooding and famine during mid-1990s) (2019)
|
| Korea, South |
stateless persons:
197 (2019)
|
| Kosovo |
IDPs:
16,000 (primarily ethnic Serbs displaced during the 1998-1999 war fearing reprisals from the majority ethnic-Albanian population; a smaller number of ethnic Serbs, Roma, Ashkali, and Egyptians fled their homes in 2,004 as a result of violence) (2019)
note: 5,639 estimated refugee and migrant arrivals (January 2015-October 2020)
|
| Kuwait |
stateless persons:
92,020 (2019); note - Kuwait's 1959 Nationality Law defined citizens as persons who settled in the country before 1920 and who had maintained normal residence since then; one-third of the population, descendants of Bedouin tribes, missed the window of opportunity to register for nationality rights after Kuwait became independent in 1961 and were classified as bidun (meaning "without"); since the 1980s Kuwait's bidun have progressively lost their rights, including opportunities for employment and education, amid official claims that they are nationals of other countries who have destroyed their identification documents in hopes of gaining Kuwaiti citizenship; Kuwaiti authorities have delayed processing citizenship applications and labeled biduns as "illegal residents," denying them access to civil documentation, such as birth and marriage certificates
|
| Kyrgyzstan |
stateless persons:
58 (2019)
|
| Latvia |
stateless persons:
216,851 (2019); note - individuals who were Latvian citizens prior to the 1940 Soviet occupation and their descendants were recognized as Latvian citizens when the country's independence was restored in 1991; citizens of the former Soviet Union residing in Latvia who have neither Latvian nor other citizenship are considered non-citizens (officially there is no statelessness in Latvia) and are entitled to non-citizen passports; children born after Latvian independence to stateless parents are entitled to Latvian citizenship upon their parents' request; non-citizens cannot vote or hold certain government jobs and are exempt from military service but can travel visa-free in the EU under the Schengen accord like Latvian citizens; non-citizens can obtain naturalization if they have been permanent residents of Latvia for at least five years, pass tests in Latvian language and history, and know the words of the Latvian national anthem
|
| Lebanon |
refugees (country of origin):
879,529 (Syria), 476,033 (Palestinian refugees) (2020)
IDPs:
11,000 (2007 Lebanese security forces' destruction of Palestinian refugee camp) (2019)
stateless persons:
undetermined (2016); note - tens of thousands of persons are stateless in Lebanon, including many Palestinian refugees and their descendants, Syrian Kurds denaturalized in Syria in 1962, children born to Lebanese women married to foreign or stateless men; most babies born to Syrian refugees, and Lebanese children whose births are unregistered
|
| Liberia |
refugees (country of origin):
8,098 (Cote d'Ivoire) (2020)
|
| Libya |
refugees (country of origin):
16,820 (Syria) (refugees and asylum seekers), 12,220 (Sudan) (refugees and asylum seekers), 5,899 (Eritrea) (refugees and asylum seekers) (2019)
IDPs:
392,241 (conflict between pro-QADHAFI and anti-QADHAFI forces in 2011; post-QADHAFI tribal clashes 2014) (2020)
|
| Lithuania |
stateless persons:
2,904 (2019)
|
| Luxembourg |
stateless persons:
83 (2019)
|
| Malawi |
refugees (country of origin):
29,416 (Democratic Republic of the Congo) (refugees and asylum seekers), 10,838 (Burundi) (refugees and asylum seekers), 6,696 (Rwanda) (refugees and asylum seekers) (2020)
|
| Malaysia |
refugees (country of origin):
119,230 (Burma) (2019)
stateless persons:
108,332 (2019); note - Malaysia's stateless population consists of Rohingya refugees from Burma, ethnic Indians, and the children of Filipino and Indonesian illegal migrants; Burma stripped the Rohingya of their nationality in 1982; Filipino and Indonesian children who have not been registered for birth certificates by their parents or who received birth certificates stamped "foreigner" are not eligible to attend government schools; these children are vulnerable to statelessness should they not be able to apply to their parents' country of origin for passports
|
| Mali |
refugees (country of origin):
16,938 (Niger), 15,316 (Mauritania), 12,890 (Burkina Faso) (2020)
IDPs:
287,496 (Tuareg rebellion since 2012) (2020)
|
| Malta |
stateless persons:
11 (2018)
note: 7,281 estimated refugee and migrant arrivals by sea (January 2015-November 2020) |
| Mauritania |
refugees (country of origin):
26,001 (Western Saharan Sahrawis) (2019); 60,455 (Mali) (2020)
|
| Mexico |
refugees (country of origin):
9,257 (Honduras) (2019); 73,494 (Venezuela) (economic and political crisis; includes Venezuelans who have claimed asylum, are recognized as refugees, or have received alternative legal stay) (2020)
IDPs:
345,000 (government's quashing of Zapatista uprising in 1994 in eastern Chiapas Region; drug cartel violence and government's military response since 2007; violence between and within indigenous groups) (2019)
stateless persons:
13 (2019)
|
| Moldova |
refugees (country of origin):
6,779 applicants for forms of legal stay other than asylum (Ukraine) (2015)
stateless persons:
3,500 (2019)
|
| Mongolia |
stateless persons:
17 (2019)
|
| Montenegro |
stateless persons:
142 (2019)
note: 17,287 estimated refugee and migrant arrivals (January 2015-December 2020)
|
| Mozambique |
refugees (country of origin):
9,953 (Democratic Republic of Congo) (refugees and asylum seekers), 8,658 (Burundi) (refugees and asylum seekers) (2020)
IDPs:
369,220 (violence between the government and an opposition group, violence associated with extremists groups in 2018, political violence 2019) (2020)
|
| Namibia |
refugees (country of origin):
6,595 (Democratic Republic of Congo) (2020)
|
| Nepal |
refugees (country of origin):
12,540 (Tibet/China), 6,396 (Bhutan) (2019)
stateless persons:
undetermined (2016); note - the UNHCR is working with the Nepali Government to address the large number of individuals lacking citizenship certificates in Nepal; smaller numbers of Bhutanese Hindu refugees of Nepali origin (the Lhotshampa) who were stripped of Bhutanese nationality and forced to flee their country in the late 1980s and early 1990s - and undocumented Tibetan refugees who arrived in Nepal prior to the 1990s - are considered stateless
|
| Netherlands |
refugees (country of origin):
31,694 (Syria), 14,809 (Eritrea), 13,007 (Somalia), 8,423 (Iraq), 5,815 (Afghanistan) (2019)
stateless persons:
1,951 (2019)
|
| Niger |
refugees (country of origin):
168,081 (Nigeria), 58,702 (Mali) (2020)
IDPs:
257,095 (includes the regions of Diffa, Tillaberi, and Tahoua; unknown how many of the 11,000 people displaced by clashes between government forces and the Tuareg militant group, Niger Movement for Justice, in 2007 are still displaced; inter-communal violence; Boko Haram attacks in southern Niger, 2015) (2020)
|
| Nigeria |
refugees (country of origin):
61,774 (Cameroon) (2020)
IDPs:
2,896,548 (northeast Nigeria; Boko Haram attacks and counterinsurgency efforts in northern Nigeria; communal violence between Christians and Muslims in the middle belt region, political violence; flooding; forced evictions; cattle rustling; competition for resources) (2020)
|
| North Macedonia |
stateless persons:
567 (2019)
note: 506,774 estimated refugee and migrant arrivals (January 2015-August 2020); North Macedonia is predominantly a transit country and hosts fewer than 50 refugees and asylum seekers as of October 2017; 3,132 migrant arrivals in 2018 |
| Norway |
refugees (country of origin):
14,359 (Syria), 14,038 (Eritrea), 6,518 (Somalia), 5,108 (Afghanistan) (2019)
stateless persons:
2,272 (2019)
|
| Oman |
refugees (country of origin):
5,000 (Yemen) (2017)
|
| Pakistan |
refugees (country of origin):
2.58-2.68 million (1.4 million registered, 1.18-1.28 million undocumented) (Afghanistan) (2017)
IDPs:
106,000 (primarily those who remain displaced by counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations and violent conflict between armed non-state groups in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Khyber-Paktunkwa Province; more than 1 million displaced in northern Waziristan in 2014; individuals also have been displaced by repeated monsoon floods) (2019)
|
| Panama |
refugees (country of origin):
79,155 (Venezuela) (economic and political crisis; includes Venezuelans who have claimed asylum or have received alternative legal stay) (2020)
|
| Papua New Guinea |
refugees (country of origin):
9,368 (Indonesia) (2019)
IDPs:
14,000 (natural disasters, tribal conflict, inter-communal violence, development projects) (2019)
|
| Peru |
refugees (country of origin):
959,631 (Venezuela) (economic and political crisis; includes Venezuelans who have claimed asylum, are recognized as refugees, or have received alternative legal stay) (2020)
IDPs:
60,000 (civil war from 1980-2000; most IDPs are indigenous peasants in Andean and Amazonian regions; as of 2011, no new information on the situation of these IDPs) (2019)
|
| Philippines |
IDPs:
182,000 (government troops fighting the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the Abu Sayyaf Group, and the New People's Army; clan feuds; armed attacks, political violence, and communal tensions in Mindanao) (2019)
stateless persons:
383 (2019); note - stateless persons are descendants of Indonesian migrants
|
| Poland |
refugees (country of origin):
9,870 (Russia) (2019)
stateless persons:
1,328 (2019)
|
| Portugal |
stateless persons:
14 (2019)
|
| Qatar |
stateless persons:
1,200 (2019)
|
| Romania |
stateless persons:
192 (2019)
note: 6,347 estimated refugee and migrant arrivals (January 2015-December 2020)
|
| Russia |
refugees (country of origin):
41,251 (Ukraine) (2019)
stateless persons:
68,209 (2019); note - Russia's stateless population consists of Roma, Meskhetian Turks, and ex-Soviet citizens from the former republics; between 2003 and 2010 more than 600,000 stateless people were naturalized; most Meskhetian Turks, followers of Islam with origins in Georgia, fled or were evacuated from Uzbekistan after a 1989 pogrom and have lived in Russia for more than the required five-year residency period; they continue to be denied registration for citizenship and basic rights by local Krasnodar Krai authorities on the grounds that they are temporary illegal migrants
|
| Rwanda |
refugees (country of origin):
77,017 (Democratic Republic of the Congo), 72,007 (Burundi) (2020)
|
| Saudi Arabia |
stateless persons:
70,000 (2019); note - thousands of biduns (stateless Arabs) are descendants of nomadic tribes who were not officially registered when national borders were established, while others migrated to Saudi Arabia in search of jobs; some have temporary identification cards that must be renewed every five years, but their rights remain restricted; most Palestinians have only legal resident status; some naturalized Yemenis were made stateless after being stripped of their passports when Yemen backed Iraq in its invasion of Kuwait in 1990; Saudi women cannot pass their citizenship on to their children, so if they marry a non-national, their children risk statelessness
|
| Senegal |
refugees (country of origin):
14,114 (Mauritania) (2020)
IDPs:
8,400 (clashes between government troops and separatists in Casamance region in the 1990s and early 2000s) (2019)
|
| Serbia |
refugees (country of origin):
17,972 (Croatia), 8,198 (Bosnia and Herzegovina) (2019)
IDPs:
199,584 (most are Kosovar Serbs, some are Roma, Ashkalis, and Egyptian (RAE); some RAE IDPs are unregistered) (2019)
stateless persons:
2,052 (includes stateless persons in Kosovo) (2018)
note: 747,865 estimated refugee and migrant arrivals (January 2015-December 2020); Serbia is predominantly a transit country and hosts an estimated 6,304 migrants and asylum seekers as of the end of May 2020 |
| Sierra Leone |
IDPs:
5,500 (displacement caused by post-electoral violence in 2018 and clashes in the Pujehun region in 2019) (2019)
|
| Singapore |
stateless persons:
1,303 (2019)
|
| Slovakia |
stateless persons:
1,523 (2019)
|
| Slovenia |
stateless persons:
5 (2019)
note: 517,914 estimated refugee and migrant arrivals (January 2015-November 2020); migration through the Western Balkans has decreased significantly since March 2016; Slovenia is predominantly a transit country and hosts approximately 300 asylum seekers as of the end of June 2018 |
| Somalia |
refugees (country of origin):
13,235 (Yemen) (2019)
IDPs:
2.65 million (civil war since 1988, clan-based competition for resources; 2011 famine; insecurity because of fighting between al-Shabaab and the Transitional Federal Government's allied forces) (2019)
|
| South Africa |
refugees (country of origin):
27,113 (Somalia), 17,726 (Ethiopia), 5,273 (Republic of the Congo) (2019); 59,675 (Democratic Republic of the Congo) (refugees and asylum seekers) (2020)
|
| South Sudan |
refugees (country of origin):
729,530 (Sudan) (refugees and asylum seekers), 16,176 (Democratic Republic of the Congo) (refugees and asylum seekers) (2020)
IDPs:
1.66 million (alleged coup attempt and ethnic conflict beginning in December 2013; information is lacking on those displaced in earlier years by: fighting in Abyei between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in May 2011; clashes between the SPLA and dissident militia groups in South Sudan; inter-ethnic conflicts over resources and cattle; attacks from the Lord's Resistance Army; floods and drought) (2020)
|
| Spain |
refugees (country of origin):
14,133 (Syria) (2019); 16,540 (Venezuela) (2020) (economic and political crisis; includes Venezuelans who have claimed asylum, are recognized as refugees, or have received alternative legal stay) (2020)
stateless persons:
4,246 (2019)
note: 196,837 estimated refugee and migrant arrivals (January 2015-December 2020) |
| Sri Lanka |
IDPs:
27,000 (civil war; more than half displaced prior to 2008; many of the more than 480,000 IDPs registered as returnees have not reached durable solutions) (2019)
|
| Sudan |
refugees (country of origin):
729,557 (South Sudan) (refugees and asylum seekers), 122,227 (Eritrea) (refugees and asylum seekers), 93,498 (Syria) (refugees and asylum seekers), 26,523 (Central African Republic), 13,130 (Ethiopia) (refugees and asylum seekers) (2020)
IDPs:
2.134 million (civil war 1983-2005; ongoing conflict in Darfur region; government and rebel fighting along South Sudan border; inter-tribal clashes) (2019)
|
| Sweden |
refugees (country of origin):
113,418 (Syria), 27,933 (Eritrea), 30,546 (Afghanistan), 17,593 (Somalia), 12,460 (Iraq), 7,408 (Iran) (2019)
stateless persons:
30,305 (2019); note - the majority of stateless people are from the Middle East and Somalia
|
| Switzerland |
refugees (country of origin):
36,698 (Eritrea), 18,755 (Syria), 13,455 (Afghanistan), 5,819 (Sri Lanka) (2019)
stateless persons:
49 (2018)
|
| Syria |
refugees (country of origin):
13,311 (Iraq) (2019); 562,312 (Palestinian Refugees) (2020)
IDPs:
6.1 million (ongoing civil war since 2011) (2020)
stateless persons:
160,000 (2019); note - Syria's stateless population consists of Kurds and Palestinians; stateless persons are prevented from voting, owning land, holding certain jobs, receiving food subsidies or public healthcare, enrolling in public schools, or being legally married to Syrian citizens; in 1962, some 120,000 Syrian Kurds were stripped of their Syrian citizenship, rendering them and their descendants stateless; in 2011, the Syrian Government granted citizenship to thousands of Syrian Kurds as a means of appeasement; however, resolving the question of statelessness is not a priority given Syria's ongoing civil war
note: the ongoing civil war has resulted in more than 5.5 million registered Syrian refugees - dispersed in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey - as of November 2020 |
| Tajikistan |
stateless persons:
7,151 (2019)
|
| Tanzania |
refugees (country of origin):
149,847 (Burundi), 77,898 (Democratic Republic of the Congo) (2020)
|
| Thailand |
refugees (country of origin):
91,806 (Burma) (2020)
stateless persons:
475,009 (2019) (estimate represents stateless persons registered with the Thai Government; actual number may be as high as 3.5 million); note - about half of Thailand's northern hill tribe people do not have citizenship and make up the bulk of Thailand's stateless population; most lack documentation showing they or one of their parents were born in Thailand; children born to Burmese refugees are not eligible for Burmese or Thai citizenship and are stateless; most Chao Lay, maritime nomadic peoples, who travel from island to island in the Andaman Sea west of Thailand are also stateless; stateless Rohingya refugees from Burma are considered illegal migrants by Thai authorities and are detained in inhumane conditions or expelled; stateless persons are denied access to voting, property, education, employment, healthcare, and driving
note: Thai nationality was granted to more than 23,000 stateless persons between 2012 and 2016; in 2016, the Government of Thailand approved changes to its citizenship laws that could make 80,000 stateless persons eligible for citizenship, as part of its effort to achieve zero statelessness by 2024 (2018) |
| Togo |
refugees (country of origin):
9,556 (Ghana) (2020)
|
| Trinidad and Tobago |
refugees (country of origin):
18,587 (Venezuela) (economic and political crisis; includes Venezuelans who have claimed asylum, are recognized as refugees, or have received alternative legal stay) (2020)
|
| Turkey |
refugees (country of origin):
3,638,420 (Syria), 170,000 (Afghanistan), 142,000 (Iraq), 39,000 (Iran), 5,700 (Somalia) (2020)
IDPs:
1.099 million (displaced from 1984-2005 because of fighting between the Kurdish PKK and Turkish military; most IDPs are Kurds from eastern and southeastern provinces; no information available on persons displaced by development projects) (2018)
stateless persons:
117 (2018)
|
| Turkmenistan |
stateless persons:
3,688 (2019)
|
| Uganda |
refugees (country of origin):
887,832 (South Sudan) (refugees and asylum seekers), 418,369 (Democratic Republic of the Congo) (refugees and asylum seekers), 49,554 (Burundi), 43,371 (Somalia) (refugees and asylum seekers), 17,239 (Rwanda) (refugees and asylum seekers), 14,865 (Eritrea) (refugees and asylum seekers) (2020)
IDPs:
32,000 (displaced in northern Uganda because of fighting between government forces and the Lord's Resistance Army; as of 2011, most of the 1.8 million people displaced to IDP camps at the height of the conflict had returned home or resettled, but many had not found durable solutions; intercommunal violence, land disputes, and cattle raids) (2019)
|
| Ukraine |
IDPs:
734,000 (Russian-sponsored separatist violence in Crimea and eastern Ukraine) (2020)
stateless persons:
35,642 (2019); note - citizens of the former USSR who were permanently resident in Ukraine were granted citizenship upon Ukraine's independence in 1991, but some missed this window of opportunity; people arriving after 1991, Crimean Tatars, ethnic Koreans, people with expired Soviet passports, and people with no documents have difficulty acquiring Ukrainian citizenship; following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, thousands of Crimean Tatars and their descendants deported from Ukraine under the STALIN regime returned to their homeland, some being stateless and others holding the citizenship of Uzbekistan or other former Soviet republics; a 1998 bilateral agreement between Ukraine and Uzbekistan simplified the process of renouncing Uzbek citizenship and obtaining Ukrainian citizenship
|
| United Kingdom |
refugees (country of origin):
19,744 (Iran), 13,755 (Eritrea), 10,575 (Sudan), 10,389 (Syria), 9,513 (Afghanistan), 8,164 (Pakistan), 5,522 (Sri Lanka) (2019)
stateless persons:
161 (2019)
|
| United States |
refugees (country of origin):
the US admitted 11,814 refugees during FY2020 including: 2,868 (Democratic Republic of the Congo), 2,115 (Burma), 1,927 (Ukraine), 604 (Afghanistan), 537 (Iraq)
note: 72,722 Venezuelans have claimed asylum since 2014 because of the economic and political crisis (2018) |
| Uruguay |
refugees (country of origin):
19,713 (Venezuela) (economic and political crisis; includes Venezuelans who have claimed asylum or have received alternative legal stay) (2020)
|
| Uzbekistan |
stateless persons:
97,346 (2019)
|
| Venezuela |
refugees (country of origin):
67,622 (Colombia) (2019)
|
| Vietnam |
stateless persons:
30,581 (2019); note - Vietnam's stateless ethnic Chinese Cambodian population dates to the 1970s when thousands of Cambodians fled to Vietnam to escape the Khmer Rouge and were no longer recognized as Cambodian citizens; Vietnamese women who gave up their citizenship to marry foreign men have found themselves stateless after divorcing and returning home to Vietnam; the government addressed this problem in 2009, and Vietnamese women are beginning to reclaim their citizenship
|
| West Bank |
refugees (country of origin):
858,758 (Palestinian refugees) (2020)
IDPs:
243,000 (includes persons displaced within the Gaza strip due to the intensification of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since June 2014 and other Palestinian IDPs in the Gaza Strip and West Bank who fled as long ago as 1967, although confirmed cumulative data do not go back beyond 2006) (2019)
|
| World |
the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that as of year-end 2019 there were 79.5 million people forcibly displaced worldwide; this includes 45.7 million conflict IDPs, 26 million refugees, 4.2 million asylum seekers, and 3.6 million Venezuelans displaced abroad; the UNHCR estimates there are currently at least 10 million stateless persons |
| Yemen |
refugees (country of origin):
14,638 (Ethiopia) (2019); 174,367 (Somalia) (2020)
IDPs:
3,635,000 (conflict in Sa'ada Governorate; clashes between al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula and government forces) (2019)
|
| Zambia |
refugees (country of origin):
55,523 (Democratic Republic of the Congo) (refugees and asylum seekers), 18,815 (Angola), 7,997 (Burundi), 5,982 (Rwanda) (2020)
|
| Zimbabwe |
refugees (country of origin):
116,237 (Nigeria), 10,901 (Democratic Republic of Congo) (refugees and asylum seekers), 8,133 (Mozambique) (2020)
IDPs:
25,517 (tropical cyclone, 2019) (2020)
stateless persons:
300,000 (2016)
|