Under
international law
International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...
, a
refugee
A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution. is a
person
A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, ...
who has fled their own
country
A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, while the ...
of
nationality
Nationality is a legal identification of a person in international law, establishing the person as a subject, a ''national'', of a sovereign state. It affords the state jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the protection of the ...
or habitual residence, and cannot return due to fear of persecution on account of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. These
recent migration movements are caused by a variety of
reasons
In the most general terms, a reason is a consideration which justifies or explains an action, a belief, an attitude, or a fact.
''Normative reasons'' are what people appeal to when making arguments about what people should do or believe. For exam ...
. Some refugees stay in
refugee camp
A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for internally displaced peo ...
s, some are
urban refugee
An urban refugee is a refugee who decided or was obliged to settle in an urban area rather than in a refugee camp in the country or territory where the person fled to. More than 60% of the world's refugee population and 80% of internally displaced ...
s in individual accommodations, some stay in self-settled camps, and the location of some refugees is undefined or unknown by
UNHCR
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integrati ...
.
By destination country of asylum
The below table is based on
UNHCR
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integrati ...
data and does not include data for people of concern to the
UNRWA or those not known to the UNHCR. These people have fled their country/territory of origin and registered with the UNHCR in these countries or territories.
By country of origin
The below table is based on
UNHCR
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integrati ...
data and does not include data for people of concern to the
UNRWA or those not known to the UNHCR. These people registered with the UNHCR outside of their country of origin.
See also
*
List of largest refugee crises
References
{{Reflist, 2
External links
UNHCR Statistical Yearbooks
*
Refugee population