Forcibly displaced
people 123.2 million14
Refugees under
UNHCR’s mandate
Population UNHCR protects and/or
assists 129.9 million
Includes both refugees and people in refugee-like situations.
Used consistently in both categorizations.
31.0M
Palestine refugees under
UNRWA’s mandate
5.9M
Not included in the population that UNHCR protects and/or assists.
Asylum-seekers
8.4M
Used consistently in both categorizations.
Other people in need of
international protection
5.9M
Used consistently in both categorizations.
Internally Displaced
People (IDPs)
73.5M
68.1M
The biggest difference between the two categorizations is with people
who have been internally displaced. When present in these statistics,
UNHCR applies two different sources:
IDMC’s IDP statistics collate the total forcibly displaced while those
IDPs protected/assisted by UNHCR are included in the total population
that UNHCR protects and/or assists.
The two sources of IDP data vary significantly in certain countries.
Globally, IDMC reports 73.5 million IDPs while UNHCR reports
68.1 million conflict-affected IDPs at end-2024.
In total, UNHCR reports 4.4 million stateless people. About 1.4 million
stateless people worldwide are also displaced. Most of them are
Rohingya, either internally displaced in Myanmar or refugees, mostly
in neighbouring countries. These 1.4 million are only counted
as forcibly displaced when calculating the total population that UNHCR
protects and/or assists to avoid double counting.
Stateless people
4.4M
Refugee returns
1.6M
Only included in the population that UNHCR protects and/or assists
for a period of 12 months.
IDP returns
8.2M
Only included in the population that UNHCR protects and/or assists
for a period of 12 months.
Others of concern
to UNHCR
3.8M
Only included in the population that UNHCR protects and/or assists.
Host community
27.3M
Not included in either categorization.
14 See UNHCR’s Refugee Data Finder
UNHCR > GLOBAL TRENDS 2024
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