Top 10 Countries With Highest Number Of Refuges

Over the past decade, the global number of refugees has more than doubled. By 2022, we will exceed 30 million refugees.

However, a common misconception is where the refugees are fleeing. In most cases, people affected by the world's largest refugee crisis cannot go to high-income countries in Europe or North America.

Instead, they are taking refuge in neighboring countries, although the escalation of the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine last year changed things somewhat for the 10 countries hosting the most refugees. Based on UNHCR data, here are these ten countries for 2023, along with some of the challenges facing refugees and host communities.

Countries With Highest Number Of Refuges

• Turkey
• Germany
• Pakistan
• Uganda
• Russia
• Poland
• Sudan
• Bangladesh
• Ethiopia
• Iran

10. Iran

Iran hosts 840,000 refugees, of which 820,000 come from Afghanistan. The two countries share a border that stretches more than 550 miles, reflecting the largest Afghan population in Iran: 4,444. Besides refugees, there are about 3.2 million Afghans in the country, of whom about half are undocumented.

The numbers and overall situation are expected to change as the crisis in Afghanistan continues to develop and worsen.

9. Ethiopia

READ ALSO » Top 12 Countries With The Highest Number Of Languages They Speak

Ethiopia receives more than 867,000 refugees. Most escaped conflict in South Sudan, Somalia, Sudan and Eritrea. In recent years, COVID-19 has complicated support for these refugee and displaced communities, limiting access to education for much of 2020 and creating shortages of medical supplies such as drugs and diagnostic equipment.

The country is also at the center of the current crisis in the Horn of Africa, a multi-year drought affecting both refugee and host communities.

8. Bangladesh

Most of the 929,000 refugees currently living in Bangladesh are stateless Rohingya, who began applying for asylum en masse in 2017 after violence erupted in the state Rakhine in Myanmar. Around this time, the town of Cox's Bazar became home to the world's largest refugee camp.

Bangladesh is also particularly affected by climate change, with increasingly extreme weather conditions, especially during the monsoon season. These risks are heightened among refugee communities, who live in informal housing that is frequently destroyed by floods and fires. The proximity of locations also makes transmission of diseases like COVID-19 a major concern.

Concern has been responding to the Rohingya crisis since 2017. Working with UN agencies, more than 130 local, national and international non-profit organizations (including Concern) have helped The Bangladesh government accommodated this capacity building. Safety and security remain serious concerns for the Rohingya living in Cox's Bazar, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

7. Sudan

Sudan is one of the countries with the largest number of refugees (1.11 million in 2022), it is also the country of origin of one of the countries with the crisis largest refugee crisis in the world. It hosts more than 807,000 refugees from South Sudan, but an even larger number of Sudanese refugees have fled the country due to ongoing violence and instability.

Since most refugees end up in a neighboring country, this also means that 310,000 Sudanese refugees are currently being hosted in South Sudan.

READ ALSO » Top 10 Countries With Highest Number Of Child Labour In The World

Sudan has also become a stopping point for tens of thousands of Ethiopians, Syrians and Eritreans. The number of internally displaced people brings the total number of “persons of concern to UNHCR” to nearly 3.6 million.

Concerns are present in the Darfur region, where most people have been forced to flee their homes, and efforts are being made to assist both refugees and host communities

6. Poland

Like Russia (see below), Poland has become one of the largest host countries for refugees as conflict escalated last year in Ukraine, with which it shares a border . Of the 1.21 million refugees currently living in Poland, 1.20 million are from Ukraine. There are also thousands of refugees from Russia and Belarus.

5. Russia

As of 2022, the Russian Federation has become one of the largest host communities in the world and is currently hosting 1.45 million refugees. Most of these refugees come from neighboring Ukraine.

4. Uganda

Ugandan policymakers have shaped and reshaped policy in recent years around providing safe and dignified housing for growing numbers of refugees, increased from 477,000 people in 2015 to 940,000 people in 2016 and 1,489,000 people in 2022.

Nearly one million people. Refugees in Uganda come from South Sudan and more than 430,000 from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

3. Pakistan

Pakistan's refugee population of 1,539,554 million refugees is almost entirely from Afghanistan:

1,539,046. Many have lived in the country for decades, initially fleeing the decade-long Soviet-Afghan War.

READ ALSO » Top 10 Countries With The Highest Number Of Homeless People In The World

The country experienced a dramatic increase of Afghan refugees in 2001, many settling in the Balochistan province just across the border. The protracted nature of these displacements means that many refugee families have lived in compromised living circumstances for generations.

Climate change and, more recently, COVID-19 have further complicated matters, as the coastal province of Balochistan is prone to flooding and pandemic-related border closures have impacted communities and the economy. economy in Pakistan and India.

Concern has been operating in Pakistan since 2001. Since then, A developed long-term programs in Balochistan, Punjab and KPK provinces, each aimed at disaster risk reduction, financial security as well as water and sanitation.

2. Germany

In recent years, among the countries hosting the most refugees, Germany was the only high-income country on the list. This changed in 2022 with the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, making Poland and Russia important host communities.

It also made Germany the second largest hosting community in the world, nearly doubling its number of refugees in less than a year. At the beginning of 2022, Germany accepted 1.2 million refugees. Today, at the beginning of 2023, it welcomes 2.2 million. This number includes more than 875,000 Ukrainian refugees and nearly 665,000 Syrian refugees, as well as more than 183,000 refugees from Afghanistan and 151,000 from Iraq.

1. Turkey

More than 3.67 million refugees are currently being hosted in Turkey. The majority of 3.64 million are “temporarily protected Syrians”. Most Syrians in Turkey live in indigenous communities rather than informal tent communities, although many still live in minimal conditions. Türkiye also accepted refugees from Iraq (more than 10,000), Afghanistan (nearly 8,400) and Iran (nearly 4,500).

Concern addresses immediate cash and livelihood needs, including participation in the world's largest cash transfer program (supported by EU funding). We are also responding to the deadly February 2023 earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria.