Chapter 2 “Stronger solidarity with refugee-hosting countries in the global South is absolutely a must.” António Guterres United Nations Secretary-General Chapter 2 Refugees At the end of 2017, the global refugee population, including 5.4 million Palestine refugees under UNRWA’s mandate, was 25.4 million – the highest known total to date and an increase of 2.9 million from 2016. The number of refugees under UNHCR’s mandate increased for the sixth year in a row, to a total population at the end of the year just shy of 20 million. Unless otherwise stated, all references to refugees in this report refer to those under UNHCR’s mandate.15 The refugee population in sub-Saharan Africa increased by 1.1 million (22 per cent) during 2017, mainly due to the crisis in South Sudan, from where more than 1 million people fled primarily to Sudan and Uganda [Table 1]. With 6.3 million refugees, this region hosted almost one-third of the world’s refugee population. At year-end, Turkey hosted the largest number of refugees (increasing during the unhcr > Global trends 2017 year to 3.5 million), while other countries on the European continent hosted 2.6 million. In the Asia-Pacific region, the refugee population increased by 21 per cent between 2016 and 2017, totalling 4.2 million as of December 2017, largely due to the arrival of refugees from Myanmar in Bangladesh during the second half of the year. Meanwhile, the number of refugees in the Middle East and North Africa remained fairly constant at 2.7 million by end-2017. The Americas region hosted 644,200 refugees at the end of 2017, a 6 per cent decline from the previous year.16 15 This figure includes some 324,300 persons in refugee-like situations, with 115,000 in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, 50,200 in Thailand, and 45,000 in Ecuador. 16 This figure does not include many Venezuelans who attained alternative legal forms of stay under national or regional frameworks. Please see box on p. 45 for further details. 13