CHAPTER 1
10
70
9
60
8
50
7
6
40
5
30
4
3
20
2
10
1
0
0
97
98
99
00
01
Refugees and asylum-seekers
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
Internally displaced persons
Some countries were especially affected by forced
displacement in 2016. Syrians continued to be the
largest forcibly displaced population, with 12 million
people at the end of 2016; that included 5.5 million
refugees, 6.3 million IDPs, and nearly 185,000
asylum-seekers (Figure 3). Colombians were the
second-largest group, with 7.7 million forcibly
displaced, mostly inside their country.9 A total of 4.7
million Afghans were also forcibly displaced, of
whom 1.8 million were IDPs and 2.9 million were
refugees or asylum-seekers. Other large displaced
populations at the end of 2016 – those with over 2
million people displaced, either internally or as
refugees or asylum-seekers – were from Iraq (4.2
million), South Sudan (3.3 million), Sudan (2.9
million), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (2.9
million), Somalia (2.6 million), Nigeria (2.5 million),
Ukraine (2.1 million), and Yemen (2.1 million).
Looking at the forcibly displaced as a proportion of
the national population,10 the Syrian Arab Republic
(Syria) was the most affected. With 650 out of every
1,000 people forcibly displaced, Syria is the only
country in which the experience of forced
displacement now affects the majority of the
population. The next most affected countries were
South Sudan with 259 people forcibly displaced per
1,000 and Somalia with 238. Other countries where
more than 1 in 10 people were forcibly displaced at
6
Proportion displaced
(number displaced per 1,000 world population)
Displaced population (millions)
Figure 1 | Trend of global displacement & proportion displaced | 1997-2016
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
Proportion displaced
end-2016 included Afghanistan, the Central African
Republic, Colombia and Iraq.
While the magnitude of forced displacement
generated by the conflict in Syria may have
overshadowed other crises and conflicts, other
emergencies also had deep consequences in 2016.
These continued to cause significant humanitarian
needs, especially in the countries least able to
respond to them. The war in South Sudan led to a
rapid outflow of refugees and many new IDP
displacements, accelerating in the second half of
the year; overall, the refugee population from South
Sudan grew by 85 per cent during the year.
9
The large number of registered IDPs in Colombia comes from
the total cumulative figure recorded in the Government’s Victims
Registry, which commenced in 1985.
10 Source for national populations: United Nations, Department of
Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2015). World
Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision (medium fertility variant
projection for 2016). See: https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/.
The current estimate for 2016 is thought to be an over-estimate of
the national population in certain countries particularly affected
by forced displacement abroad. Nationals abroad have not been
included in the population estimate. Therefore, this measure is seen
as indicative only. The population estimate used will be revisited
in July 2017, when the new World Population Prospects will be
published and revised figures published in the online edition.
UNHCR > GLOBAL TRENDS 2016