“More people are being displaced by
war and persecution and that’s worrying
in itself, but the factors that endanger
refugees are multiplying too.”
Filippo Grandi,
UN High Commissioner for Refugees
year, Lebanon is first on this list, followed by Jordan.
In Lebanon nearly one in five individuals is a refugee (under UNHCR’s mandate and not including
Palestinian refugees under the UNRWA mandate),
and these relatively large numbers have had a substantial political and socio-economic impact on the
country. Using this method, Sweden and Malta are
the only high-income countries to appear among the
top 10, both with 17 refugees per 1,000 population.
Both in terms of economic impact and demographic
impact, low- and middle-income countries are being
disproportionately affected by refugee movements. ●
21 Source for national populations: United Nations, Population
Division, World Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision, New
York, 2015.
Fig.8 Where refugees from top 5 countries of origin found asylum | end-2015
(No. of refugees in millions)
In 2015, the majority of refugees were able to find asylum in neighboring countries. Of the 10.1 million refugees
from the five highest countries of origin, all but 1.1 million (11%) found safety in a neighboring country. This is the
case for most of the refugee populations of concern to UNHCR.
Major countries of asylum
Major countries of origin
4.9
2.7
1.1
Syrian Arab Republic
Afghanistan
Somalia
0.8
South Sudan
0.6
Sudan
Turkey
2.5
Pakistan
1.6
Lebanon
1.1
Iran (Islamic Republic of)
1.0
Jordan
0.6
Ethiopia
0.5
Kenya
0.5
Chad
0.3
Yemen
South Sudan
Uganda
Sudan
0.3
0.2
0.2
0.2
Other
1.1
UNHCR Global Trends 2015 21