CHAPTER 2 Table 1 | Refugee population by UNHCR regions | e  nd-2016 Start-2016 End-2016 Refugees People in refugeelike situations Refugees People in refugeelike situations - Central Africa and Great Lakes 1,173,400 15,900 1,189,200 1,355,200 26,700 1,381,900 192,700 - East and Horn of Africa 2,739,400 - 2,739,400 3,290,400 - 3,290,400 551,000 20 189,800 - 189,800 162,100 - 162,100 -27,700 -15 UNHCR regions - Southern Africa Total refugees Change (total) Total refugees Absolute % 16 - West Africa 295,000 - 295,000 300,600 - 300,600 5,600 2 Total Africa* 4,397,600 15,900 4,413,400 5,108,300 26,700 5,135,100 721,700 16 Americas 496,400 250,400 746,800 471,200 221,500 692,700 -54,100 -7 Asia and Pacific 3,568,100 278,300 3,846,500 3,177,800 300,000 3,477,800 -368,700 -10 Europe 4,358,000 28,800 4,386,800 5,152,700 47,300 5,199,900 813,100 19 thereof: Turkey 2,541,400 - 2,541,400 2,869,400 - 2,869,400 328,000 13 Middle East and North Africa 2,675,500 58,500 2,734,000 2,623,400 58,500 2,682,000 -52,000 -2 15,495,600 631,900 16,127,500 16,533,400 654,000 17,187,500 1,060,000 7 Total * Excluding North Africa. However, crises in sub-Saharan Africa also led to significant refugee movement. There were 737,400 newly recognized refugees from South Sudan, mostly in the second half of 2016, followed by Burundi (121,700 newly recognized), Iraq (81,900), Eritrea (69,600), Afghanistan (69,500), and Nigeria (64,700). Offsetting these growth trends, there also were 552,200 refugee returns during the year, as well as approximately 189,300 people resettled and 23,000 known naturalizations of refugees.18 Due mainly to the crisis in Syria, the number of refugees in Europe continued to rise. At year-end, Turkey hosted the largest number of refugees (2.9 million, mostly from Syria), while the rest of the European countries hosted 2.3 million refugees (Table 1). Sub-Saharan Africa hosted a large and growing number of refugees (constituting a 16 per cent increase over 2015), due mainly to refugees from Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan. In sub-Saharan Africa, the vast majority of refugees remained in the immediately neighbouring countries (see Annex Table 28 for list of countries by UNHCR region). COU NTR I E S O F A SY LU M Developing regions continued to share a disproportionately large responsibility for hosting refugees. Nine of the top 10 refugee-hosting countries were in developing regions, according to 14 the United Nations Statistics Division classification (Figure 4).19 Three of these (the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, and Uganda) were classified as least developed countries, 20 facing severe structural impediments to sustainable development in addition to the challenges of large refugee flows. As in 2015, Turkey was the country hosting the largest refugee population, with 2.9 million refugees at the end of 2016, up from 2.5 million in December 2015. The vast majority of refugees in Turkey were from Syria: More than 2.8 million Syrian refugees represented more than 98 per cent of the entire refugee population in Turkey, with about 330,000 newly registered Syrian refugees. In addition, 30,400 refugees from Iraq were registered in Turkey, as well as smaller numbers from the Islamic Republic of Iran (7,000), Afghanistan (3,400), and Somalia (2,200). Pakistan had the second-largest refugee population, despite declining numbers mainly through refugee returns. At the end of 2015, Pakistan hosted 1.6 million refugees; by the end of 2016, this number had decreased to 1.4 million, driven largely by some 380,000 departures. 21 The refugee population in Pakistan continued to be almost exclusively from Afghanistan. 18 See Chapter 3 for more details on solutions. 19 See https://unstats.un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/ for a list of countries included under each region. 20 See https://unstats.un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/ for a list of least developed countries. 21 Pakistan hosted large numbers of undocumented Afghans. UNHCR > GLOBAL TRENDS 2016