20 June 2016: asylum statistics, unhcr

UNHCR reports record level of 65,3 million displaced

Of these 65,3 million displaced,

• 21.3 million persons were refugees (16.1 million under UNHCR’s mandate and 5.2 million Palestinian refugees registered by UNRWA)
• 40.8 million were internally displaced persons
• 3.2 million were asylum-seekers

Developing regions hosted 86% of the world’s refugees under UNHCR’s mandate. At 13.9 million people, this was the highest figure in more than two decades.

Children below 18 years of age constituted about half of the refugee population.

As in 2014, Turkey again hosted the largest number of refugees worldwide. Lebanon hosted the largest number of refugees in relation to its national population, with 183 refugees per 1,000 inhabitants.

The report can be accessed at the following link:

UNHCR: Global Trends. Forced Displacement in 2015, 20 June 2016
http://www.unhcr.at/uploads/tx_n4mteaserobjects/Global_Report_2015.pdf

For numbers on asylum decisions in the European Union in 2015, see the following two EUROSTAT publications:

EUROSTAT: Asylum in the EU Member States; Record number of over 1.2 million first time asylum seekers registered in 2015; Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis: top citizenships [44/2016], 4 March 2016

EUROSTAT: Asylum in the EU Member States; Number of first time asylum seekers down to fewer than 290 000 in the first quarter of 2016; More than 1 out of 3 continued to come from Syria [120/2016], 16 June 2016

“In 2015, 1 255 600 first time asylum seekers applied for international protection in the Member States of the European Union (EU), a number more than double that of the previous year.
The number of Syrians seeking international protection has doubled in 2015 compared with the previous year to reach 362 800, while the number of Afghans has almost quadrupled to 178 200 and that of Iraqis has multiplied by 7 to 121 500. They represent the three main citizenships of first time asylum applicants in the EU Member States in 2015, accounting for more than half of all first time applicants.” (EUROSTAT, 4 March 2016)