Refugee and stateless populations in India As of January 2020, the government of India was providing protection and assistance to 108,005 refugees from Tibet and 95,230 from Sri Lanka. UNHCR India had 40,859 refugees and asylum seekers registered including refugees from Myanmar (21,049), Afghanistan (16,333) and 3,477 refugees from Iran, Iraq, Somalia, and other countries of origin. • Although often called refugees, the majority of Tibetans in India do not enjoy refugee status (or any other legal status) and remain stateless. • The MHA Annual Report 2018-19 remarks that many Sri Lankan refugees in India are stateless. However, it does not provide any data on these stateless individuals or any other stateless population in India. • UNHCR clarified in 2019 that for the first time, Rohingyas refugees would also be counted as stateless persons and reported that there were 17,730 stateless persons of Rohingya ethnicity in India at the end of 2019. * A large number of refugees (including stateless refugees), asylum seekers and stateless persons in India remain unregistered with the Government of India or UNHCR India. Unofficial estimates put the total number in hundreds of thousands.  introduction 33