CHAPTER 9 CHAPTER 9 WHOM DO THE STATISTICS INCLUDE? POPULATION OF CONCERN TO UNHCR By the end of 2016, the total population of concern to UNHCR stood at 67.7 million people. This included people who have been forcibly displaced (refugees, asylum-seekers, and internally displaced persons) and those who have found a durable solution (returnees), as well as stateless persons, most of whom have never been forcibly displaced. Therefore, this categorization is different from the 65.6 million forcibly displaced people worldwide – a figure that includes refugees and other displaced people not covered by UNHCR’s mandate, and excludes other categories such as returnees and stateless people. A detailed breakdown of UNHCR’s population of concern by category and country is provided in Annex Table 1. Refugees include individuals recognized under the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, its 1967 Protocol, the 1969 Organization of African Unity (OAU) Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa, those recognized in accordance with the UNHCR Statute, individuals granted complementary forms of protection, and those enjoying temporary protection. The refugee population also includes people in refugee-like situations. Asylum-seekers (with ‘pending cases’) are individuals who have sought international protection and whose claims for refugee status have not yet been determined. Those covered in this report refer to claimants whose individual applications were pending at the end of 2016, irrespective of when those claims may have been lodged. 56 Internally displaced persons are people or groups of people who have been forced to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights, or natural or man-made disasters, and who have not crossed an international border. For the purposes of UNHCR’s statistics, this population includes only conflictgenerated IDPs to whom the Office extends protection and/or assistance. The IDP population also includes people in an IDP-like situation. Returned refugees (returnees) are former refugees who have returned to their countries of origin, either spontaneously or in an organized fashion, but are yet to be fully integrated. Such returns normally would take place only under conditions of safety and dignity. For the purposes of this report, only refugees who returned between UNHCR > GLOBAL TRENDS 2016