# Library

- ABOUT
- REFERENCES
- APPENDICES
- FAQs
- CONTACT

FIELD LISTING :: REFUGEES AND INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS
This entry includes those persons residing in a country as refugees or internally displaced persons (IDPs). Each country's refugee entry includes only countries of origin that are the source of refugee populations of 5,000 or more. The definition of a refugee according to a United Nations Convention is "a person who is outside his/her country of nationality or habitual residence; has a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion; and is unable or unwilling to avail himself/herself of the protection of that country, or to return there, for fear of persecution." The UN established the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 1950 to handle refugee matters worldwide. The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has a different operational definition for a Palestinian refugee: "a person whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948 and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict." However, UNHCR also assists some 400,000 Palestinian refugees not covered under the UNRWA definition. The term "internally displaced person" is not specifically covered in the UN Convention; it is used to describe people who have fled their homes for reasons similar to refugees, but who remain within their own national territory and are subject to the laws of that state.

Country Comparison to the World

Country | REFUGEES AND INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS
--- | ---
Afghanistan | refugees (country of origin): 241,641 (Pakistan) (2015) IDPs: 948,000 (mostly Pashtuns and Kuchis displaced in the south and west due to drought and instability) (2015)
Albania | stateless persons: 7,443 (2014)
Algeria | refugees (country of origin): 90,000 (Western Saharan Sahrawi, mostly living in Algerian-sponsored camps in the southwestern Algerian town of Tindouf) (2014) IDPs: undetermined (civil war during 1990s) (2013)
Angola | refugees (country of origin): 12,944 (Democratic Republic of Congo) (2014)
Armenia | refugees (country of origin): 14,994 (Syria - ethnic Armenians) (2014) IDPs: 8,400 (conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh) (2014) stateless persons: 206 (2014)
Australia | refugees (country of origin): 7,675 (Afghanistan) (2014)
Austria | refugees (country of origin): 11,906 (Afghanistan); 19,577 (Russia) (2014) stateless persons: 570 (2014)
Azerbaijan | IDPs: up to 568,900 (conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh; IDPs are mainly ethnic Azerbaijanis but also include ethnic Kurds, Russians, and Turks predominantly from occupied territories around Nagorno-Karabakh; number includes IDPs' descendants, returned IDPs, and people living in insecure areas and excludes people displaced by natural disasters; around half the IDPs live in the capital Baku) (2014) stateless persons: 3,585 (2014)
Bangladesh | refugees (country of origin): 232,462 (Burma) (2014) IDPs: at least 431,000 (violence, human rights violations, religious persecution, natural disasters) (2015)
Belarus | refugees (country of origin): 126,407 applicants for forms of legal stay other than asylum (Ukraine) (2015) stateless persons: 6,440 (2014)
Belgium | refugees (country of origin): 5,038 (Afghanistan) (2014) stateless persons: 2,554 (2014)
Bosnia and Herzegovina | refugees (country of origin): 6,703 (Croatia) (2014) IDPs: 100,400 (Bosnian Croats, Serbs, and Bosniaks displaced by inter-ethnic violence, human rights violations, and armed conflict during the 1992-1995 war) (2014) stateless persons: 101 (2014)
Brunei | stateless persons: 20,524 (2014); note - thousands of stateless persons, often ethnic Chinese, are permanent residents and their families have lived in Brunei for generations; obtaining citizenship is difficult and requires individuals to pass rigorous tests on Malay culture, customs, and language; stateless residents receive an International Certificate of Identity, which enables them to travel overseas; the government is considering changing the law prohibiting non-Bruneians, including stateless permanent residents, from owning land
Bulgaria | refugees (country of origin): 8,501 (Syria) (2014) stateless persons: 67 (2014)
Burkina Faso | refugees (country of origin): 33,703 (Mali) (2015)
Burma | IDPs: up to 662,400 (government offensives against armed ethnic minority groups near its borders with China and Thailand) (2015) stateless persons: 1.45 million (2014); note - Burma's main group of stateless people is the Rohingya, Muslims living in northern Rakhine State; the Burmese Government does not recognize the Rohingya as a "national race" and stripped them of their citizenship under the 1982 Citizenship law, categorizing them as "non-national" or "foreign residents," under the Rakhine State Action Plan drafted in October 2014, the Rohingya must demonstrate their family has lived in Burman for at least 60 years to qualify for a lesser naturalized citizenship and the classification of Bengali or be put in detention camps and face deportation; native-born but non-indigenous people, such as Indians, are also stateless; the Burmese Government does not grant citizenship to children born outside of the country to Burmese parents who left the country illegally or fled persecution, such as those born in Thailand
Burundi | refugees (country of origin): 54,011 (Democratic Republic of the Congo) (2015) IDPs: 79,200 (the majority are ethnic Tutsi displaced by inter-communal violence that broke out after the 1993 coup and fighting between government forces and rebel groups; no new displacements since 2008 when the last rebel group laid down its arms) (2015) stateless persons: 1,302 (2014)
Cabo Verde | stateless persons: 115 (2014)
Cameroon | refugees (country of origin): 251,232 (Central African Republic); 57,295 (Nigeria) (2015) IDPs: 81,693 (2015)
Canada | refugees (country of origin): 16,428 (Colombia); 13,231 (China); 10,745 (Sri Lanka); 8,613 (Pakistan); 8,422 (Haiti); 6,762 (Mexico) (2014)
Central African Republic | refugees (country of origin): 5,342 (Democratic Republic of the Congo) (2015) IDPs: 369,490 (clashes between army and rebel groups since 2005; tensions between ethnic groups) (2015)
Chad | refugees (country of origin): 367,229 (Sudan); 91,211 (Central African Republic); 14,586 (Nigeria) (2015) IDPs: 111,000 (majority are in the east) (2015)
China | refugees (country of origin): 300,896 (Vietnam); undetermined (North Korea) (2014) IDPs: undetermined (2014)
Colombia | IDPs: 6,044,200 (conflict between government and illegal armed groups and drug traffickers since 1985; about 300,000 new IDPs each year since 2000) (2014) stateless persons: 12 (2014)
Congo, Democratic Republic of the | refugees (country of origin): 38,028 (Rwanda) (2014); 98,281 (Central African Republic); 23,639 (Burundi) (2015) IDPs: 2,857,400 (fighting between government forces and rebels since mid-1990s; most IDPs are in eastern provinces) (2015)
Congo, Republic of the | refugees (country of origin): 23,376 (Democratic Republic of Congo); 9,104 (Rwanda) (2014); 27,654 (Central African Republic) (2015) IDPs: 7,800 (multiple civil wars since 1992) (2014)
Costa Rica | refugees (country of origin): 16,623 (Colombia) (2014) stateless persons: 1,200 (2014)
Cote d'Ivoire | IDPs: 300,900 (post-election conflict in 2010-2011, as well as civil war from 2002-2004; most pronounced in western and southwestern regions) (2015) stateless persons: 700,000 (2014); note - many Ivoirians lack documentation proving their nationality, which prevent them from accessing education and healthcare; birth on Ivorian soil does not automatically result in citizenship; disputes over citizenship and the associated rights of the large population descended from migrants from neighboring countries is an ongoing source of tension and contributed to the country's 2002 civil war; some observers believe the government's mass naturalizations of thousands of people over the last couple of years is intended to boost its electoral support base; the government in October 2013 acceded to international conventions on statelessness and in August 2013 reformed its nationality law, key steps to clarify the nationality of thousands of residents
Croatia | stateless persons: 2,886 (2014)
Cyprus | IDPs: 212,400 (both Turkish and Greek Cypriots; many displaced since 1974) (2015) (2014)
Czech Republic | stateless persons: 1,502 (2014)
Denmark | refugees (country of origin): 7,253 (Afghanistan) (2014) stateless persons: 4,725 (2014)
Djibouti | refugees (country of origin): 11,931 (Somalia) (2015)
Dominican Republic | stateless persons: 210,000 (2014); note - a September 2013 Constitutional Court ruling revoked the citizenship of those born after 1929 to immigrants without proper documentation, even though the constitution at the time automatically granted citizenship to children born in the Dominican Republic and the 2010 constitution provides that constitutional provisions cannot be applied retroactively; the decision overwhelmingly affected people of Haitian descent whose relatives had come to the Dominican Republic since the 1940s as a cheap source of labor for sugar plantations; a May 2014 law passed by the Dominican Congress will regularize the status of those who have birth certificates but will require those without them to prove they were born in the Dominican Republic and to apply for naturalization
Ecuador | refugees (country of origin): 121,317 (Colombia) (2014)
Egypt | refugees (country of origin): 70,023 (West Bank and Gaza Strip); 12,730 (Sudan); 5,149 (Iraq) (2014); 132,375 (Syria); 7,365 (Somalia) (2015) stateless persons: 20 (2014)
Estonia | stateless persons: 88,076 (2014); note - following independence in 1991, automatic citizenship was restricted to those who were Estonian citizens prior to the 1940 Soviet occupation and their descendants; thousands of ethnic Russians remained stateless when forced to choose between passing Estonian language and citizenship tests or applying for Russian citizenship; one reason for demurring on Estonian citizenship was to retain the right of visa-free travel to Russia; stateless residents can vote in local elections but not general elections; stateless parents who have been lawful residents of Estonia for at least five years can apply for citizenship for their children before they turn 15
Ethiopia | refugees (country of origin): 286,920 (South Sudan); 247,706 (Somalia); 139,039 (Eritrea); 36,863 (Sudan) (2015) IDPs: 413,400 (border war with Eritrea from 1998-2000; ethnic clashes; and ongoing fighting between the Ethiopian military and separatist rebel groups in the Sumale and Oromiya regions; natural disasters; intercommunal violence; most IDPs live in Sumale state) (2015)
Finland | stateless persons: 2,293 (2014)
France | refugees (country of origin): 23,966 (Sri Lanka); 13,727 (Democratic Republic of the Congo); 13,644 (Russia); 12,003 (Cambodia); 12,119 (Serbia and Kosovo); 10,699 (Turkey); 8,281 (Vietnam); 7,036 (Laos); 5,201 (Guinea); 5,058 (Mauritania) (2014) stateless persons: 1,288 (2014)
Gambia, The | refugees (country of origin): 11,036 (Senegal) (2014)
Gaza Strip | refugees (country of origin): 1,258,559 (Palestinian refugees (UNRWA)) (2014) IDPs: at least 263,500 (includes persons displaced within the Gaza strip due to the intensification of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since June 2014 and other Palestinian IDPs in the Gaza Strip and West Bank who fled as long ago as 1967, although confirmed cumulative figures do not go back beyond 2006) (2015)
Georgia | IDPs: 232,700 (displaced in the 1990s as a result of armed conflict in the breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia; displaced in 2008 by fighting between Georgia and Russia over South Ossetia) (2014) stateless persons: 770 (2014)
Germany | refugees (country of origin): 41,167 (Iraq); 40,994 (Syria); 27,814 (Afghanistan); 22,242 (Turkey); 18,814 (Iran); 9,294 (Serbia and Kosovo) (2014) stateless persons: 11,917 (2014)
Ghana | refugees (country of origin): 9,779 (Cote d'Ivoire; flight from 2010 post-election fighting); 5,262 (Liberia) (2014)
Greece | stateless persons: 199 (2014)
Guatemala | IDPs: at least 248,500 (more than three decades of internal conflict that ended in 1996 displaced mainly the indigenous Maya population and rural peasants; ongoing drug cartel and gang violence) (2014) (2011)
Guinea-Bissau | refugees (country of origin): 8,601 (Senegal) (2014)
Guinea | refugees (country of origin): 6,580 (Cote d'Ivoire) (2014)
Haiti | IDPs: 60,801 (includes only IDPs from the 2010 earthquake living in camps or camp-like situations; information is lacking about IDPs living outside camps or who have left camps) (2015)
Honduras | IDPs: at least 29,400 (violence, extortion, threats, forced recruitment by urban gangs) (2013)
Hungary | refugees (countries of origin): 5,950 applicants for forms of legal stay other than asylum (Ukraine) (2015) stateless persons: 124 (2014)
Iceland | stateless persons: 119 (2014)
India | refugees (country of origin): 109,018 (Tibet/China); 65,057 (Sri Lanka); 14,301 (Burma); 10,395 (Afghanistan) (2014) IDPs: at least 616,140 (armed conflict and intercommunal violence) (2015)
Indonesia | IDPs: at least 31,440 (inter-communal, inter-faith, and separatist violence between 1998 and 2004 in Aceh and Papua; religious attacks and land conflicts in 2012 and 2013; most IDPs in Aceh, Maluku, East Nusa Tengarra) (2015) (2011)
Iran | refugees (country of origin): 2.4 million (1 million registered, 1.4 million undocumented) (Afghanistan); 32,000 (Iraq) (2014)
Iraq | refugees (country of origin): 16,637 (Turkey); 11,053 (Iran); 9,246 (West Bank and Gaza Strip) (2014); 249,463 (Syria) (2015) IDPs: 4,125,734 (since 2006 from ethno-sectarian violence; includes 3,171,606 displaced in central and northern Iraq since January 2014) (2015) stateless persons: 120,000 (2014); note - in the 1970s and 1980s under SADDAM Husayn's administration, thousands of Iraq's Faili Kurds, followers of Shia Islam, were stripped of their Iraqi citizenship, had their property seized by the government, and many were deported; some Faili Kurds had their citizenship reinstated under the 2006 Iraqi Nationality Law, but others lack the documentation to prove their Iraqi origins; some Palestinian refugees, who were also persecuted under the SADDAM Husayn regime, still remain stateless in Iraq
Ireland | stateless persons: 99 (2014)
Israel | refugees (country of origin): 32,668 (Eritrea); 6,588 (Sudan) (2014) stateless persons: 10 (2014)
Italy | refugees (country of origin): 13,357 (Eritrea); 12,213 (Somalia); 8,991 (Afghanistan); 6,293 (Nigeria); 5,764 (Pakistan); 5,552 (Mali) (2014) stateless persons: 813 (2014)
Japan | stateless persons: 635 (2014)
Jordan | refugees (country of origin): 2,097,338 (Palestinian refugees (UNRWA)); 29,263 (Iraq) (2014); 629,245 (Syria) (2015)
Kazakhstan | stateless persons: 7,038 (2014)
Kenya | refugees (country of origin): 421,789 (Somalia - includes registered asylum seekers); 91,805 (South Sudan); 31,023 (Ethiopia - includes registered asylum seekers); 22,049 (Democratic Republic of Congo - includes registered asylum seekers); 10,443 (Sudan - includes registered asylum seekers); 7,292 (Burundi - includes registered asylum seekers) (2015) IDPs: 309,200 (represents people displaced since the 1990s by ethnic and political violence and land disputes and who sought refuge mostly in camps; persons who took refuge in host communities or were evicted in urban areas are not included in the data; data is not available on pastoralists displaced by cattle rustling, violence, natural disasters, and development projects; the largest displacement resulted from 2007-08 post-election violence (2014) stateless persons: 20,000 (2014); note - the stateless population is composed of Nubians, Kenyan Somalis, and coastal Arabs; the Nubians are descendants of Sudanese soldiers recruited by the British to fight for them in East Africa more than a century ago; they did not receive Kenyan citizenship when the country became independent in 1963; only recently have Nubians become a formally recognized tribe and had less trouble obtaining national IDs; Galjeel and other Somalis who have lived in Kenya for decades are lumped in with more recent Somali refugees and denied ID cards
Korea, North | IDPs: undetermined (periodic flooding and famine during mid-1990s) (2007)
Korea, South | stateless persons: 204 (2014)
Kosovo | IDPs: 17,100 (primarily ethnic Serbs displaced during the 1998-1999 war fearing reprisals from the majority ethnic-Albanian population; a smaller number of ethnic Serbs, Roma, Ashkali, and Egyptians fled their homes in 2004 as a result of violence) (2015)
Kuwait | stateless persons: 93,000 (2014); note - Kuwait's 1959 Nationality Law defined citizens as persons who settled in the country before 1920 and who had maintained normal residence since then; one-third of the population, descendants of Bedouin tribes, missed the window of opportunity to register for nationality rights after Kuwait became independent in 1961 and were classified as bidun (meaning without); since the 1980s Kuwait's bidun have progressively lost their rights, including opportunities for employment and education, amid official claims that they are nationals of other countries who have destroyed their identification documents in hopes of gaining Kuwaiti citizenship; Kuwaiti authorities have delayed processing citizenship applications and labeled biduns as "illegal residents," denying them access to civil documentation, such as birth and marriage certificates; 2011 bidun demonstrations for the recognition of their Kuwaiti nationality led to several arrests
Kyrgyzstan | stateless persons: 12,133 (2014); note - most stateless people were born in Kyrgystan, have lived there many years, or are married to a Kyrgyz citizen; in 2009, Kyrgyzstan adopted a national action plan to speed up the exchange of old Soviet passports for Kyrgyz ones; stateless people are unable to register marriages and births, to travel within the country or abroad, to own property, or to receive social benefits
Latvia | stateless persons: 262,802 (2014); note - individuals who were Latvian citizens prior to the 1940 Soviet occupation and their descendants were recognized as Latvian citizens when the country's independence was restored in 1991; citizens of the former Soviet Union residing in Latvia who have neither Latvian nor other citizenship are considered non-citizens (officially there is no statelessness in Latvia) and are entitled to non-citizen passports; children born after Latvian independence to stateless parents are entitled to Latvian citizenship upon their parents' request; non-citizens cannot vote or hold certain government jobs and are exempt from military service but can travel visa-free in the EU under the Schengen accord like Latvian citizens; non-citizens can obtain naturalization if they have been permanent residents of Latvia for at least five years, pass tests in Latvian language and history, and know the words of the Latvian national anthem
Lebanon | refugees (country of origin): 449,957 (Palestinian refugees (UNRWA)); 5,986 (Iraq) (2014); 1,113,941 (Syria) (2015) IDPs: 19,719 (2007 Lebanese security forces' destruction of Palestinian refugee camp) (2014) stateless persons: undetermined (2014); note - tens of thousands of persons are stateless in Lebanon, including many Palestinian refugees and their descendants, Syrian Kurds denaturilzed in Syria in 1962, children born to Lebanese women maried to foreign or stateless men; most babies born to Syrian refugees, and Lebanese children whose births are unregistered
Liberia | refugees (country of origin): 38,102 (Cote d'Ivoire) (2015) IDPs: up to 23,000 (civil war from 1990-2004; post-election violence in March and April 2011; unclear how many have found durable solutions; many dwell in slums in Monrovia) (2014)
Libya | refugees (country of origin): 18,653 (Syria); 5,391 (West Bank and Gaza Strip) (2014) IDPs: more than 434,000 (conflict between pro-Qadhafi and anti-Qadhafi forces in 2011; post-Qadhafi tribal clashes 2014) (2015)
Lithuania | stateless persons: 3,645 (2014)
Luxembourg | stateless persons: 81 (2014)
Macedonia | stateless persons: 741 (2014)
Madagascar | IDPs: 21,475 (floods in 2015) (2015)
Malawi | IDPs: 107,000 (floods in 2015) (2015)
Malaysia | refugees (country of origin): 93,866 (Burma) (2014) stateless persons: 40,000 (2014); note - Malaysia's stateless population consists of Rohingya refugees from Burma, ethnic Indians, and the children of Filipino and Indonesian illegal migrants; Burma stripped the Rohingya of their nationality in 1982; Filipino and Indonesian children who have not have been registered for birth certificates by their parents or who received birth certificates stamped "foreigner" are not eligible to go to government schools; these children are vulnerable to statelessness should they not be able to apply to their parents' country of origin for a passport
Mali | refugees (country of origin): 12,898 (Mauritania) (2014) IDPs: 78,183 (Tuareg rebellion since 2012) (2015)
Mauritania | refugees (country of origin): 26,001 (Western Saharan - Sahrawis) (2014); 49,911 (Mali) (2015)
Mexico | IDPs: 281,400 (government's quashing of Zapatista uprising in 1994 in eastern Chiapas Region; drug cartel violence and government's military response since 2007; violence between and within indigenous groups) (2014) stateless persons: 13 (2014)
Moldova | refugees (country of origin): 6,779 applicants for forms of legal stay other than asylum (Ukraine) (2015) stateless persons: 2,036 (2014)
Mongolia | stateless persons: 16 (2014)
Montenegro | refugees (country of origin): 5,633 (Serbia and Kosovo) (2014) stateless persons: 3,296 (2014)
Mozambique | IDPs: 61,102 (2015 floods) (2015)
Nepal | refugees (country of origin): 23,059 (Bhutan); 15,000 (Tibet/China) (2014) IDPs: 59,433 (remaining from ten-year Maoist insurgency that officially ended in 2006; figure does not include people displaced since 2007 by inter-communal violence and insecurity in the Terai region; 2015 earthquakes) (2015) stateless persons: undetermined (2013); note - in 2007-2008 the government distributed 2.6 million citizenship certificates to the 3.4 million people without one; the remaining 800,000 without citizenship certificates are not necessarily stateless, and the UNHCR is working with the Nepali Government to clarify their situation; lesser numbers of Bhutanese Hindu refugees of Nepali origin (the Lhotsampa) who were stripped of Bhutanese nationality and forced to flee their country in the late 1980s and early 1990s - and undocumented Tibetan refugees who arrived in Nepal prior to the 1990s - are considered stateless
Netherlands | refugees (country of origin): 18,687 (Somalia); 14,396 (Iraq); 8,692 (Syria); 6,294 (Eritrea); 6,244 (Afghanistan) (2014) stateless persons: 1,951 (2014)
Nigeria | IDPs: 1,538,982 (Boko Haram attacks and counterinsurgency efforts in northern Nigeria; communal violence between Christians and Muslims in the middle belt region, political violence; flooding; forced evictions; cattle rustling; competition for resources) (2015)
Niger | refugees (country of origin): 105,583 (Nigeria); 51,693 (Mali) (2015) IDPs: 66,400 (unknown how many of the 11,000 people displaced by clashes between government forces and the Tuareg militant group, Niger Movement for Justice, in 2007 are still displaced; inter-communal violence; Boko Haram attacks in southern Niger, 2015) (2015)
Norway | refugees (country of origin): 8,901 (Somalia); 11,202 (Eritrea); 5,190 (Iraq); 5,454 (Afghanistan) (2014) stateless persons: 1,997 (2014)
Pakistan | refugees (country of origin): 3 million (1.6 million registered, 1.4 million undocumented) (Afghanistan) (2015) IDPs: more than 1.8 million (primarily those who remain displaced by counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations and violent conflict between armed non-state groups in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Khyber-Paktunkwa Province; more than one million displaced in Northern Waziristan in 2014; individuals also have been displaced by repeated monsoon floods) (2015)
Panama | refugees (country of origin): 15,551 (Colombia) (2014)
Papua New Guinea | refugees (country of origin): 9,368 (Indonesia) (2014) IDPs: 22,500 (natural disasters, tribal conflict, inter-communal violence, development projects) (2015)
Peru | IDPs: at least 150,000 (civil war from 1980-2000; most IDPs are indigenous peasants in Andean and Amazonian regions; as of 2011, no new information on the situation of these IDPs) (2014)
Philippines | IDPs: about 127,000 displaced by conflict and at least 327,000 were displaced by natural disasters (government troops fighting the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the Abu Sayyaf Group, and the New People's Army; clan feuds; natural disasters including typhoon Bopha (December 2012), the Bohol earthquake (October 2013), typhoon Haiyan (November 2013), and typhoon Hagupit (December 2014)) (2015) stateless persons: 6,370 (2014); note - stateless persons are descendants of Indonesian migrants
Poland | refugees (country of origin): 14,277 (Russia) (2014); 71,302 applicants for forms of legal stay other than asylum (Ukraine) (2015) stateless persons: 10,825 (2014)
Portugal | stateless persons: 14 (2014)
Qatar | stateless persons: 1,200 (2014)
Romania | stateless persons: 299 (2014)
Russia | refugees (country of origin): 383,323 asylum seekers and 911,549 applicants for other forms of legal stay (Ukraine) (2015) IDPs: at least 25,378 (armed conflict, human rights violations, generalized violence in North Caucasus, particularly Chechnya and North Ossetia) (2014) stateless persons: 113,474 (2014); note - Russia's stateless population consists of Roma, Meskhetian Turks, and ex-Soviet citizens from the former republics; between 2003 and 2010 more than 600,000 stateless people were naturalized; most Meskhetian Turks, followers of Islam with origins in Georgia, fled or were evacuated from Uzbekistan after a 1989 pogrom and have lived in Russia for more than the required five-year residency period; they continue to be denied registration for citizenship and basic rights by local Krasnodar Krai authorities on the grounds that they are temporary illegal migrants
Rwanda | refugees (country of origin): 73,915 (Democratic Republic of the Congo); 75,551 (Burundi) (2015) IDPs: undetermined (fighting between government and insurgency in 1998-99; returning refugees) (2012)
Saudi Arabia | stateless persons: 70,000 (2014); note - thousands of biduns (stateless Arabs) are descendants of nomadic tribes who were not officially registered when national borders were established, while others migrated to Saudi Arabia in search of jobs; some have temporary identification cards that must be renewed every five years, but their rights remain restricted; most Palestinians have only legal resident status; some naturalized Yemenis were made stateless after being stripped of their passports when Yemen backed Iraq in its invasion of Kuwait in 1990; Saudi women cannot pass their citizenship on to their children, so if they marry a non-national, their children risk statelessness
Senegal | refugees (country of origin): 13,699 (Mauritania) (2014) IDPs: up to 24,000 (clashes between government troops and separatists in Casamance region) (2014)
Serbia | refugees (country of origin): 32,408 (Croatia); 11,325 (Bosnia and Herzegovina) (2014) IDPs: 97,000 (most are Kosovar Serbs, some are Roma, Ashkalis, and Egyptian (RAE); some RAE IDPs are unregistered) (2015) stateless persons: 3,578 (includes stateless persons in Kosovo) (2014)
Slovakia | stateless persons: 1,523 (2014)
Somalia | IDPs: 1.106 million (civil war since 1988, clan-based competition for resources; 2011 famine; insecurity because of fighting between al-Shabaab and TFG allied forces) (2015)
South Africa | refugees (country of origin): 40,133 (Somalia); 30,125 (Democratic Republic of Congo); 18,830 (Ethiopia); 6,217 (Zimbabwe); 6,035 (Republic of Congo) (2014)
South Sudan | refugees (country of origin): 243,819 (Sudan); 14,987 (Democratic Republic of the Congo) (2015) IDPs: 1,606,400 (alleged coup attempt and ethnic conflict beginning in December 2013; information is lacking on those displaced in earlier years by: fighting in Abyei between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in May 2011; clashes between the SPLA and dissident militia groups in South Sudan; inter-ethnic conflicts over resources and cattle; attacks from the Lord's Resistance Army; floods and drought) (2015)
Spain | stateless persons: 270 (2014)
Sri Lanka | IDPs: up to 73,700 (civil war; more than half displaced prior to 2008; many of the more than 480,000 IDPs registered as returnees have not reached durable solutions) (2015)
Sudan | refugees (country of origin): 109,196 (Eritrea); 42,334 (Chad); 5,495 (Ethiopia) (2014); 191,624 (South Sudan) (2015) IDPs: 3.1 million (civil war 1983-2005; ongoing conflict in Darfur region; government and rebel fighting along South Sudan border; inter-tribal clashes) (2015)
Sweden | refugees (country of origin): 34,285 (Syria); 24,184 (Iraq); 21,189 (Somalia); 14,107 (Eritrea); 12,090 (Afghanistan) (2014) stateless persons: 27,167 (2014); note - the majority of stateless people come from the Middle East and Somalia
Switzerland | refugees (country of origin): 16,091 (Eritrea); 5,161 (Syria) (2014) stateless persons: 76 (2014)
Syria | refugees (country of origin): 526,744 (Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA)) (2014); undetermined (Iraq) (2015) note: the ongoing civil war has created more than 4 million Syrian refugees - dispersed in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey - as of August 2015 IDPs: 7,632,500 (ongoing civil war since 2011) (2015) stateless persons: 160,000 (2014); note - Syria's stateless population is composed of Kurds and Palestinians; stateless persons are prevented from voting, owning land, holding certain jobs, receiving food subsidies or public healthcare, enrolling in public schools, or being legally married to Syrian citizens; in 1962, some 120,000 Syrian Kurds were stripped of their Syrian citizenship, rendering them and their descendants stateless; in 2011, the Syrian Government granted citizenship to thousands of Syrian Kurds as a means of appeasement; however, resolving the question of statelessness is not a priority given Syria's ongoing civil war
Tajikistan | stateless persons: 1,364 (2014)
Tanzania | refugees (country of origin): 53,881 (Democratic Republic of the Congo) (2014); 88,546 (Burundi) (2015)
Thailand | refugees (country of origin): 128,863 (Burma) (2014) IDPs: up to 35,000 (resurgence in ethno-nationalist violence in south of country since 2004) (2015) stateless persons: 506,197 (2014); note - about half of Thailand's northern hill tribe people do not have citizenship and make up the bulk of Thailand's stateless population; most lack documentation showing they or one of their parents were born in Thailand; children born to Burmese refugees are not eligible for Burmese or Thai citizenship and are stateless; most Chao Lay, maritime nomadic peoples, who travel from island to island in the Andaman Sea west of Thailand are also stateless; stateless Rohingya refugees from Burma are considered illegal migrants by Thai authorities and are detained in inhumane conditions or expelled; stateless persons are denied access to voting, property, education, employment, healthcare, and driving
Togo | refugees (country of origin): 18,444 (Ghana) (2014) IDPs: undetermined (2015)
Turkey | refugees (country of origin): at least 103,000 (Iraq) (2014); 1,938,999 (Syria) (2015) IDPs: 954,000-1.2 million (displaced from 1984-2005 because of fighting between Kurdish PKK and Turkish military; most IDPs are Kurds from eastern and southeastern provinces; no information available on persons displaced by development projects) (2014) stateless persons: 780 (2014)
Turkmenistan | stateless persons: 7,511 (2014)
Uganda | refugees (country of origin): 187,838 (Democratic Republic of Congo); 185,300 (South Sudan); 28,005 (Somalia); 16,601 (Rwanda); 25,597 (Burundi) (2015) IDPs: 30,136 (displaced in northern Uganda because of fighting between government forces and the Lord's Resistance Army; as of 2011, most of the 1.8 million people displaced to IDP camps at the height of the conflict had returned home or resettled, but many had not found durable solutions; intercommunal violence and cattle raids) (2014)
Ukraine | IDPs: 1,449,245 (Russian-sponsored separatist violence in Crimea and eastern Ukraine) (2015) stateless persons: 35,335 (2014); note - citizens of the former USSR who were permanently resident in Ukraine were granted citizenship upon Ukraine's independence in 1991, but some missed this window of opportunity; people arriving after 1991, Crimean Tatars, ethnic Koreans, people with expired Soviet passports, and people with no documents have difficulty acquiring Ukrainian citizenship; following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, thousands of Crimean Tatars and their descendants deported from Ukraine under the STALIN regime returned to their homeland, some being stateless and others holding the citizenship of Uzbekistan or other former Soviet republics; a 1998 bilateral agreement between Ukraine and Uzbekistan simplified the process of renouncing Uzbek citizenship and obtaining Ukrainian citizenship
United Kingdom | refugees (country of origin): 11,583 (Eritrea); 11,510 (Iran); 9,467 (Zimbabwe); 9,039 (Afghanistan); 8,509 (Somalia); 5,669 (Pakistan) (2014) stateless persons: 16 (2014)
United States | refugees (country of origin): the US admitted 69,987 refugees during FY2014 including: 19,769 (Iraq); 14,598 (Burma); 9,000 (Somalia); 8,434 (Bhutan); 4,540 (Democratic Republic of the Congo); 4,062 (Cuba); 2,846 (Iran)
Uzbekistan | stateless persons: 86,703 (2014)
Venezuela | refugees (country of origin): 173,519 (Colombia) (2014) stateless persons: 11,000 (2014)
Vietnam | stateless persons: 11,000 (2013); note - Vietnam's stateless ethnic Chinese Cambodian population dates to the 1970s when thousands of Cambodians fled to Vietnam to escape the Khmer Rouge and were no longer recognized as Cambodian citizens; Vietnamese women who gave up their citizenship to marry foreign men have found themselves stateless after divorcing and returning home to Vietnam; the government addressed this problem in 2009, and Vietnamese women are beginning to reclaim their citizenship
West Bank | refugees (country of origin): 762,288 (Palestinian refugees (UNRWA)) (2014) IDPs: at least 263,500 (includes persons displaced within the Gaza strip due to the intensification of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since June 2014 and other Palestinian IDPs in the Gaza Strip and West Bank who fled as long ago as 1967, although confirmed cumulative figures do not go back beyond 2006) (2015)
World | the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that as of the end of 2014 there were 59.5 million people forcibly displaced worldwide; this includes 19.5 million refugees, 1.8 million asylum seekers, and 38.2 million conflict IDPs; the UNHCR estimates there are currently at least 10 million stateless persons (2012)
Yemen | refugees (country of origin): 5,934 (Ethiopia) (2014); 244,404 (Somalia) (2015) IDPs: 1,439,118 (conflict in Sa'ada governorate; clashes between AQAP and government forces) (2015)
Zambia | refugees (country of origin): 18,598 (Democratic Republic of the Congo) (2014)
Zimbabwe | IDPs: undetermined (political violence, violence in association with the 2008 election, human rights violations, land reform, and economic collapse) (2015)

GO TOP