The world’s refugees in numbers: MID 2018

During the first half of 2018, UNCHR offices reported at least 1.4 million were displaced across international borders.

UNHCR – Conflict, persecution, generalized violence and violations of human rights have caused the levels of forced displace- ment to remain high in the first half of 2018.

The first six months of the year saw continued new displacements due to the Syrian conflict as well as conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa including South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Nigeria, the Central African Republic, Sudan, Eritrea, and Burundi. Additionally, significant new internal displacements were reported in the Syrian Arab Republic (Syria), Somalia, Nigeria, DRC, and South Sudan. At the same time, the level of returns of displaced people has remained low, leading to an increased displaced population.

This report analyses displacement trends for the first half of 2018. The figures in this report were collected from governments and UNHCR offices around the world, supplemented where required by data from non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Unless otherwise specified, figures are limited to events occurring up to 30 June 2018. The statistics included in this report should be considered provisional and subject to change, especially with regard to asylum trends.

Refugees of UNHCR

As of 30 June 2018, UNHCR reported a total population of concern of 70.4 million people. This included 20.2 million refugees under UNHCR’s mandate, 3.2 million asylum-seekers, 124,100 returned refugees, 39.7 million internally displaced people (IDPs), 2.5 million returned IDPs and 3.9 million stateless people.

During the first half of 2018, UNCHR offices reported that at least 5.2 million people were newly displaced. Some 3.7 million were displaced within their own country, while 1.4 million were displaced across international borders, the vast majority remaining in neighboring countries. This number of new displacements is compared with the 3.2 million newly displaced in the first half of 2016 and 6.5 million in that of 2017.

Asylum Application

Just over 1 million individual asylum applications were registered in 156 countries or territories during the first half of 2018, a small increase compared to the corresponding period in 2017 (920,500). An estimated 14 percent of these claims were registered at ‘second instance’, including with courts and other appellate bodies. UNHCR offices registered 126,900 individual asylum applications out of the provisional total of 1,023,000, or around 12 percent.

There were 3.2 million pending asylum claims at the end of June 2018, a slight increase on the 3.1 million awaiting decisions at the end of 2017, and on the 3.0 million pending applications at mid-year 2017. The United States of America had the largest asylum-seeker population in the middle of the year with 657,200 people, an increase of some 14,500 compared with the end of the previous year. Germany had the second-largest asylum-seeker population with 394,100, a decline of 35,200 from the end of 2017, as the processing of a large number of applications received in 2016 continued. Other countries with large numbers of asylum seekers at mid-2018 included Turkey (301,900), South Africa (184,200), Italy (131,900), Peru (122,600) and Brazil (113,200), the latter two countries reflecting the large influx of Venezuelans applicants in the past year.

Resettlement Refugees

In the current context of growing global forced displacement, resettlement continues to be a critical protection tool, providing protection and solutions for refugees who face specific or urgent protection risks. Resettlement is also a tangible mechanism for international solidarity and responsibility-sharing with states hosting large numbers of refugees.

In this context, more than 1.4 million refugees have been identified by UNHCR as needing access to this key durable solution. The total is 17 percent higher than that of last year (almost 1.2 million) and reflects needs from more than 60 countries of asylum, from both protracted and more recent refugee situations. Syrians constitute the largest refugee population in need of resettlement (601,200), followed by Congolese (DRC) (163,400) and South Sudanese (158,500). UNHCR estimates that at the current pace, it will take 18 years for the 1.4 million refugees to be resettled.

Consideration to 26 resettlement states during the first half of the year. UNHCR expects to submit more than 75,000 refugees by the end of 2018, a figure similar to 2017 (75,200). While stable over this two year period, both figures are less than half of 2016 when 163,200 refugees were submitted by UNHCR. This dramatic drop reflects a fluctuation in global resettlement places and as such represents a significant decrease in global resettlement opportunities. A number of European countries have increased their resettlement quotas in recent years, notably France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The United States of America, however, remained the main recipient during the first half of 2018 with 13,100 refugees submitted by UNHCR, more than half of them Congolese (6,900). Canada recorded 6,000 submissions (mostly Syrian and Somali refugees), while the United Kingdom and Sweden received 3,500 and 3,300 submissions, respectively (mostly Syrians in both cases). Member states of the European Union together received about 15,000 or 38 percent of all UNHCR resettlement submissions during the reporting period. Turkey is not only the largest refugee-hosting country in the world, but the UNHCR office in Turkey also continued to be the largest resettlement operation worldwide. Some 8,700 individuals were referred to states during the first half of the year, 68 percent of the Syrians. Turkey was followed by the United Republic of Tanzania and Lebanon with 5,100 and 4,700 submissions, respectively. During the first six months of the year, UNHCR assisted 25,800 refugees to depart for resettlement, notably from Lebanon (5,800) and Turkey (3,800). Almost half of all departures recorded during the reporting period were Syrians. 

Refugees Hosting Countries

Turkey continued to host the world’s largest number of refugees at the middle of 2018, with a registered refugee population of 3.6 million, an increase from 3.5 million at the end of 2017. Refugees from Syria represented 98 percent of all refugees in Turkey. The magnitude of the displacement from Syria is highlighted by the fact that there were fewer than 15,000 refugees in Turkey at the end of 2011, with fewer than 20 from Syria. By mid-2018, in addition to the nearly 3.6 million from Syria, there were also 38,700 refugees from Iraq, 8,800 from Iran and 6,400 from Afghanistan.

Pakistan hosted the second-largest number of refugees worldwide in mid-2018 with 1.4 million. As in previous years, nearly all these refugees originated from Afghanistan and numbers were rising slowly, mainly due to new births with negligible new arrivals.

The third-largest host of refugees was Uganda. There were 1.1 million refugees. The majority of these refugees were from South Sudan with 784,500 people. As of 31 October 2018, Uganda also hosted 275,100 refugees from the DRC (a net increase of 48,900 people or 22 percent despite significant reductions due to the verification exercise), along with refugees from Burundi (31,200), Somalia (18,700) and Rwanda (13,800).

The number of refugees in Germany continued to increase, making the country the fourth-largest host of refugees in the world in the middle of 2018, compared with the sixth-largest at the end of 2017. The population stood at just over 1.0 million, an increase of 51,300 in the first half of 2018. Over half of this population was from Syria (514,000). Other refugees originated mainly from Iraq (134,000), Afghanistan (116,700), Eritrea (53,100), Islamic Republic of Iran (40,000), Turkey (22,700) and Somalia (22,000). Altogether, refugees from 163 different countries were hosted by Germany in the middle of the year.

The number of refugees reported by the Islamic Republic of Iran was 979,400, the same as the end of 2017, and the country hosted the fifth-largest refugee population. Most refugees continued to be from Afghanistan (951,100) and Iraq (28,300).

The Syrian crisis continued to affect Lebanon where the number of refugees remained high at 974,600, the vast majority from Syria (968,100). This was a decline since the beginning of the year when the population was 998,900, mostly due to the inactivation of cases during verification exercises.

Bangladesh hosted close to one million refugees (943,200), almost entirely from Myanmar. There were 10,700 new arrivals reported in the first half of the year, a small number relative to the arrivals in the second half of 2017.