Refugees by Country 2024

Refugees are people who have been forced to flee their home country in order to escape conflict, violence, natural disaster, or persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political stance, or association with a particular social group. According to the United Nations, an estimated 100 million people around the world were forcibly displaced by the midway point of 2023. This total included 30 million international refugees living in a nation other than their country of birth, 57 million individuals displaced in their own country, and 6 million people seeking asylum in a new country (as well as several million niche cases, such as stateless individuals). Half of today’s refugees are children.

The 2022 Ukrainian refugee crisis

Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 triggered a massive exodus of refugees out of Ukraine. In April 2022, the UN called the Ukraine refugee crisis "the fastest and largest displacement of people in Europe since World War II." By the end of 2023, even though more than a million Ukrainians had returned to their homes during the year, approximately 5.8-6.2 million Ukrainians remained international refugees and another 5 million were still internally displaced within Ukraine.

Top 10 Countries Hosting the Highest Number of International Refugees (mid-2021 data):

Refugee relief efforts are often complicated by the fact that 80% of international refugees are escaping one of the world's developing countries only to settle in another—usually the closest neighboring country—with limited resources and capacity to offer aid. For instance, Uganda and Sudan are two of the leading refugee host nations in the world, but also two of the UN's least-developed countries according to the Human Development Index (HDI). In fact, Sudan is also one of the world's leading generators of refugees (see list further down this page). Wealthier, developed states typically have greater capacity to aid, accept, and incorporate refugees, but often also display less motivation to do so.

Refugee classifications

While the classic image of a refugee is that of a person moving to an entirely new country, these international refugees make up only a portion of the world's total displaced people. Many refugees who are forced to evacuate their homes lack the wherewithal and/or opportunity to travel to a new country, and so become refugees in their own home nation. These internally displaced people (IDPs) are actually more common than international refugees, whom IDPs outnumbered 48 million to 26.6 million in mid-2021. Other non-typical refugee types include asylum seekers, who arrive seeking international protection, and stateless people, who are not claimed as nationals by any country.

Note also that the definition of a refugee may include not only the person displaced, but the children of refugees as well, operating under the logic that the child of a displaced person is also displaced regardless of whether that child ever lived in the country from which their parent was displaced. According to the United Nations, both the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which serves Palestinian refugees throughout the Middle East, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which serves the rest of the world, apply this same broad definition:

"Under international law and the principle of family unity, the children of refugees and their descendants are also considered refugees until a durable solution is found. Both UNRWA and UNHCR recognize descendants as refugees on this basis, a practice that has been widely accepted by the international community, including both donors and refugee hosting countries.

Palestine refugees are not distinct from other protracted refugee situations such as those from Afghanistan or Somalia, where there are multiple generations of refugees, considered by UNHCR as refugees and supported as such."

Which countries do most refugees come from?

Because refugees seek asylum due to specific causes such as violence, war, and persecution, certain countries prone to these conditions generate far more refugees than countries that are safer and more stable.

Due to the Syrian Civil War, Syria has generated the most international refugees in the world several years running. Mid-2021 data from the United Nations confirmed that most of the 6.7 million refugees to leave Syria had remained in the Middle East, hosted predominantly by Turkey (3.69 million), Lebanon (852k), Jordan (668k), and Germany (616k). In addition, nearly 6.8 more people who could not leave remained within Syria as internally displaced people (IDPs), refugees within their own country.

Colombia, too, hosts a massive IDP population, due largely to ongoing land ownership conflicts. Additionally, the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian War also had a massive impact on refugee totals, and the civil and economic turmoil in Venezuela continues to displace millions of people both domestically and internationally. However, as of mid-2023, Syria remained the leading origin country for international refugees.

Top 10 Origin Countries of International Refugees (mid-2023):

Note: Totals include international refugees and individuals in refugee-like situations, asylum seekers, others of concern to UNHCR, and the unique-to-Venezuela "Other people in need of international protection" category. Totals exclude internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees who returned home during 2023.

Causes of refugee migration

Armed conflicts and wars are the most common reasons refugees leave their homes, as demonstrated by not only Syria, but also South Sudan, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Syria, and (obviously) 2022 Ukraine. Drought and famine, primarily brought on or amplified by climate change, is another prominent cause (as is the attendant food insecurity, such as in the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Many countries face multiple issues, such as Sudan and Somalia suffering through both drought and civil unrest; or Afghanistan enduring armed conflict, droughts, and also natural disasters.