CHAPTER 2 TANZANIA. REFUGEES RELIEVED TO ESCAPE ESCALATING VIOLENCE IN BURUNDI. Refugees arrive at UNHCR’s Nduta camp in the Kigoma District of Tanzania. They are welcomed with emergency assistance and provided with temporary shelter. © UNHCR/SEBASTIAN RICH Continuing conflicts in Burundi and South Sudan resulted in growing numbers of refugees in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That country hosted 452,000 refugees at the end of 2016, compared with 383,100 at the beginning of the year. The number of refugees from South Sudan jumped more than tenfold from 5,600 to 66,700 over the year, while the number from Burundi rose from 23,200 to 36,300. The largest refugee populations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo continued to be from Rwanda (245,100) and the Central African Republic (102,500). The refugee population in Kenya declined during 2016 from 553,900 to 451,100, a decrease of nearly 20 per cent. Still, Kenya hosted the 10th-largest refugee population globally. The number of Somali refugees in the country decreased from 417,900 to 324,400 during the year, mainly due to reverification exercises, returning refugees and, to a lesser extent, resettlement. In addition to Somalis, significant numbers of refugees from South Sudan (87,100), Ethiopia (19,100), and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (13,300) remained in Kenya at the end of 2016. 16 COU NTR I E S O F O R I G I N Altogether, refugees from the top 10 countries of origin accounted for 13.5 million refugees, or 79 per cent of the global refugee population under UNHCR’s mandate – an increasing proportion compared with 2015 (76 per cent). With the exception of Syria, these are all considered least developed countries.23 The main country of origin for refugees in 2016 was Syria, with 5.5 million refugees at the end of the year, an increase over the 4.9 million a year earlier. While these refugees were hosted by some 123 countries on six continents, the vast majority (87 per cent) remained in neighbouring countries. Turkey hosted the largest population of Syrian refugees, increasing throughout 2016 and peaking at 2.8 million by the end of the year. Other countries in the region with significant numbers of Syrian refugees included Lebanon (1.0 million), Jordan (648,800), Iraq (230,800), and Egypt (116,000). Outside the region, countries with large Syrian 23 See https://unstats.un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/ for a list of least developed countries. UNHCR > GLOBAL TRENDS 2016