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World Refugee Day

20 June

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Refugees and Forcibly Displaced Persons
Refugees and Forcibly
Displaced Persons Every minute eight people leave everything behind to escape Facts and Figures
war, persecution or terror.
Helping Refugees By the end of 2011:
UN Secretary-General's There are several types of forcibly displaced persons.
Message An estimated 43.3 million people
Refugees worldwide were forcibly displaced due
Documents to conflict and persecution.
UN System A refugee is someone who fled his or her home and country Among refugees and people in refugee-
Resources owing to “a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her like situations, children constituted 46
race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social per cent of the population.
Stories
group, or political opinion”, according to the United Nations 876,100 individual applications for
UN Observances 1951 Refugee Convention. Many refugees are in exile to escape asylum or refugee status were
the effects of natural or human-made disasters. submitted in 171 countries or
#worldrefugeeday Tweets territories.
Developing countries host four-fifths of the world’s refugees. The
48 Least Developed Countries provide asylum to 2.3 million The number of internally displaced
refugees. persons, benefitting from UNHCR’s
protection and assistance activities,
was 15.5 million.
Asylum seekers
UNHCR identified some 3.5 million
Asylum seekers say they are refugees and have fled their stateless people in 64 countries.
However, the actual number of
homes as refugees do, but their claim to refugee status is not stateless persons worldwide was
yet definitively evaluated in the country to which they fled. estimated at up to 12 million.
Internally Displaced Persons Source: Protecting Refugees and the Role
of UNHCR (September 2012)
Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) are people who have not
crossed an international border but have moved to a different region than the one they call home within their
own country.

Stateless Persons
Stateless persons do not have a recognized nationality and do not belong to any country.
Statelessness situations are usually caused by discrimination against certain groups. Their lack of
identification — a citizenship certificate — can exclude them from access to important government services,
including health care, education or employment.

Returnees
Returnees are former refugees who return to their own countries or regions of origin after time in exile.
Returnees need continuous support and reintegration assistance to ensure that they can rebuild their lives at
home.

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