Refugees:

At the present time there are about 12 million refugees in the world.

Refugees are ordinary people who have fled from their own countries because of war, or because their religion, political beliefs, ethnic group or way of life puts them in danger of arrest, torture or death.

These people have left their home country and cannot go back there, although most refugees prefer to return to their home as soon as it is safe. Often they have to wait until a conflict or a war has ended in their country, and the basic necessities of life have been restored.

Displaced People:

Around 25 to 30 million people have fled from their homes because their lives are in danger, but have gone into hiding in their home country. This group of people are called displaced people. They have fled from their homes for the same reasons as refugees. The difference between displaced people and refugees is that refugees have left their own countries.

Asylum Seekers:

At this time there are about 914,100 Asylum Seekers in the world.

When people flee their own country, they apply for the right to be recognised as refugees in the country they have fled to. This is called seeking asylum. If they are granted asylum, they then have the right to be protected by the law and cared for financially by that country.

In the last fifty years several million people were granted asylum in different countries around the world. As travel and communication has become easier there has been an increase in the number of people seeking asylum. Europe experienced particularly large numbers of people seeking asylum during the Balkan crisis in the 1990's. Because of the increase, many countries have made it harder for asylum seekers to be granted asylum. In Europe, the member states of the European Union have been working for several years to reach an agreement on their asylum procedures.

Resettlement:

Some refugees cannot or are unwilling to return home, usually because they would still be persecuted if they did. They are helped to find new homes, either in the asylum country where they are living or in another country where they can stay and make a new home. Sometimes countries are willing to accept refugees in emergencies, but there are only about twelve countries who will offer some refugees a permanent new home.

ORIGIN OF MAJOR REFUGEE POPULATIONS IN 2001 [ Ten largest groups1 ]
Country of Origin 2	Main Countries of Asylum	Total
Afghanistan	Pakistan / Iran	3,809,600
Burundi	Tanzania	554,000
Iraq	Iran	530,100
Sudan	Uganda / Ethiopia / D.R. Congo / Kenya / C.A.R	489,500
Angola	Zambia / D.R. Congo / Namibia	470,600
Somalia	Kenya / Yemen / Ethiopia / USA / United Kingdom	439,900
Bosnia-Herzegovina	Yugoslavia / USA / Sweden / Denmark / Netherlands	426,000
Democratic Rep. Congo	Tanzania / Congo / Zambia / Rwanda / Burundi	392,100
Viet Nam	China / USA	353,200
Eritrea	Sudan	333,100
1 An estimated 3.9 million Palestinians who are covered by a separate mandate of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) are not included in this report. However, Palestinians outside the UNWRA area of operations such as those in Iraq or Libya, are considered to be of concern to UNHCR. At year-end their number was 349,100. 2 This table includes UNHCR estimates for nationalities in industrialized countries on the basis of recent refugee arrivals and asylum seeker recognition.

ASYLUM APPLICATIONS SUBMITTED IN SELECTED INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRIES1 [ in 2001 ]
Country of Asylum	Main Countries of Origin	Asylum applications
United Kingdom	Afghanistan / Iraq / Somalia / Sri Lanka / Yugoslavia	88,300
Germany	Iraq / Turkey / Yugoslavia / Afghanistan / Russian Fed.	88,290
United States2	Mexico / China / Colombia / Haiti / Armenia	86,180
France	Turkey / D.R. Congo / China / Mali / Algeria	47,290
Canada	Hungary / Pakistan / Sri Lanka / Zimbabwe / China	44,040
Netherlands	Angola / Afghanistan / Sierra Leone / Iran / Guinea	32,580
Austria	Afghanistan / Iraq / Turkey / India / Yugoslavia	30,140
Belgium	Russian Fed. / Yugoslavia / Algeria / D.R. Congo / Iran	24,550
Sweden	Iraq / Yugoslavia / Bosnia-Herzegovina / Russian Fed. / Iran	23,520
Switzerland	Yugoslavia / Turkey / Bosnia-Herzegovina / Iraq / FYR Macedonia	20,630
Czech Republic	Ukraine / Moldova / Romania / Viet Nam / India	18,090
Norway	Russian Fed. / Croatia / Somalia / Iraq / Ukraine	14,780
Denmark	Afghanistan / Iraq / Bosnia-Herzegovina / Yugoslavia / Somalia	12,400
Australia	Afghanistan / Iraq / China / Indonesia / Fiji	12,370
Ireland	Nigeria / Romania / Moldova / Ukraine / Russian Fed.	10,330
1 Countries with more than 10,000 asylum applications. 2 Estimated by UNHCR on the basis of 1.4 asylum applicants per application.

MAIN COUNTRIES OF RESETTLEMENT OF REFUGEES [ in 2001 ]
United States	68,400
Canada	12,200
Australia	6,500
Norway	1,300
Sweden	1,100
New Zealand	760
Finland	740
Netherlands	630
Denmark	530

press the back button on your browser to return