Young Afghan boys and teenagers have to endure the cold in Calais, France. Some sleep under bridges at night while
others find accomodation through an organization defending the rights of migrants.
UNHCR / H. CAUX
59 years, whereas 5 per cent were 60 years or older. Among refugees and people in refugee-like
situations, children constituted 41 per cent of the population. Their proportion was significantly higher
among those refugees who returned home in 2009 (54%). This poses considerable challenges for
reintegration programmes, in particular with respect to education in those locations where schools
have been damaged or destroyed.
Children constituted only 27 per cent of asylum-seekers, a population often largely composed of single
men particularly in the industrialized world. Moreover, populations in camps were younger (52 per cent
children) than in urban areas (43 per cent children).
The availability of information according to age breakdown was particularly limited for developed
countries in Europe, North America and Oceania. Thus, the figures above cannot be considered fully
representative of the entire population under UNHCR’s responsibility.
Location characteristics
Information collected about the location characteristics of
where persons of concern reside is broken down by the
following categories: camps/settlements/centres; urban
areas; and rural areas. The last two categories usually
correspond to people privately accommodated with host
families or living on their own. In 2009, the type of location
was reported for some 15 million persons of concern residing
mainly in non-industrialized countries. (19) This represents
close to 41 per cent of the total population of concern. With
some 78 per cent coverage (8.2 million people), the
availability of location data was higher for refugees than for
any other group. Of these, 2.5 million people were residing in
organized camps or centres (30%) and 4.8 million (58%) in
Distribution of refugees
by type of location * | end-2009
Fig 9
58%
50%
50%
34%
30%
2007
30%
2008
% Camps
2009
% Urban
* Excludes unknown locations
19
Even though UNHCR offices reported the information on the location for a total of 29 million persons of concern, the location or
settlement type for 14 million persons (mostly IDPs) was unclear or a mixture of types.
2009 Global Trends 15