82.4 million forcibly displaced people at the end of 2020

The UNHCR's document indicates that there were 82.4 million forcibly displaced people worldwide at the end of 2020, because of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations or events seriously disturbing public order.

Specifically, 48 million are internal displaced people, 26.4 are refugees, 4.1 million are asylum-seekers and 3.9 million are Venezuelans displaced abroad.

The other side of the coin is people who return to their countries of origin. Some 251,000 refugees came back home during 2020 while 34,400 were resettled with or without UNHCR’s assistance.

68% of refugees are from five countries

From these 82.4 million forcibly displaced people, more than two thirds are people from just five countries: 6.7 million from Syrian Arab Republics, because of the internal war, 4 million from Venezuela, 2.6 million from Afghanistan, 2.2 million from South Sudan and 1.1 million from Myanmar.

39% of displaced people are hosted in five countries

Five countries received the 40% of the displaced people. Turkey hosts the largest number of refugees, with nearly 3.7 million people, Colombia is second with 1.7 million and Pakistan is third with 1.4 million. Uganda and Germany completing the top five.

Developing countries host 86 per cent of the world’s refugees, and the Least Developed Countries provide asylum to 27 per cent of the total. Furthermore, 73 per cent of refugees lived in countries neighbouring their countries of origin.

Children are among the most affected

An estimated 35 million of the 82.4 million forcibly displaced people are children below 18 years of age. Besides that, one million children were born as refugees.