Chapter 2 Figure 5 | Major source countries of refugees | end-2017 to end-2018 Syrian Arab Rep. Afghanistan South Sudan Myanmar Somalia Sudan DR of the Congo Central African Rep. Eritrea Burundi 0 1 2 Refugee population (millions) Altogether, neighbouring countries hosted nearly all refugees from South Sudan. Refugees originating from Myanmar represented the fourth largest population group by country of origin. By the end of 2018, this population stood at 1.1 million, about the same as in 2017. Most refugees from Myanmar were hosted by Bangladesh (906,600) at the end of the year, a slight decline from the end of 2017 (932,200) due to improvements in registration methods. Other countries with sizable populations of refugees from Myanmar were Malaysia (114,200), Thailand (97,600) and India (18,800). Most of the refugee population from Myanmar was hosted in Bangladesh and nearly the entirety of refugees from Myanmar were hosted by countries in the region. The number of Somali refugees worldwide continued to decline slowly, mainly as a result of verification exercises in and returns from Kenya and – to a lesser extent – from Yemen. At the end of 2017, there were 986,400 Somali refugees, a number that decreased to 949,700 by the end of 2018. As a result of the decline in Kenya, Ethiopia became the largest host of Somali refugees with 257,200 at the end of 2018. This was followed by Kenya (252,500), Yemen (249,000), South Africa (27,100), Germany (23,600), Sweden (21,000), Uganda (18,800), the Netherlands unhcr > Global trends 2018 3 4 5 6 end-2018 7 end-2017 (14,000), Italy (13,400) and Djibouti (12,700). Over 80 per cent of Somali refugees have remained in countries close to Somalia. The number of registered refugees originating from Sudan reached 724,800 by the end of 2018, up from 694,600 the previous year. Chad continued to host the largest Sudanese refugee population with 336,700, while 269,900 Sudanese refugees were living in South Sudan. Other countries hosting a significant Sudanese refugee population at end-2018 included Ethiopia (44,000), Egypt (19,500) and France (14,700). Neighbouring countries hosted some 93 per cent of Sudanese refugees in 2018. At the year’s end, DRC was the seventh largest country of origin of refugees, with 720,300 refugees. The majority from DRC (85 per cent) were hosted by neighbouring countries including Uganda with a population of 303,100, Rwanda (77,000), Burundi (70,900), the United Republic of Tanzania (Tanzania) (56,600), Zambia (41,500), Angola (37,100), South Sudan (15,600) and the Republic of the Congo (Congo) (11,300). Substantial refugee populations were also hosted by South Africa (26,300), Kenya (24,600) and France (16,500). Nearly all refugees from DRC (94 per cent) remained in sub-Saharan African countries. 15