A refugee is someone living outside his or her home country that is unable or unwilling to return to their home country because of a justifiable fear of persecution based on their race, sex, ethnicity, religion, or political stance. Moreover, a person is given the official status as a refugee either by a contracting state or the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). People fleeing from an area or country with an ongoing violent conflict or who risk death penalty if returned home are also often granted the status as refugees.
Internally displaced persons
Though many people leave their countries for these reasons, most people escaping war and natural disasters remain in their country of origin, being internally displaced persons (IDPs). The global number of IDPs overtook the number of refugees in 2006 and has grown significantly since, especially after 2012. As with the refugees, this is connected to the Syrian Civil War, with Syria accounting for the highest numbers of IDPs in the world. However, the number of IDPs in Sub-Saharan Africa has increased at a high rate in recent years, especially at the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes Region. There, long-term conflicts in Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo as well as the recent Civil War in Tigray in Ethiopia have driven the number of IDPs.While refugees have a legal status and the UNHCR is responsible for assisting them, there is no such mechanism in place for IDPs. As they usually are residing in a country ridden by conflict and violence, the Government officially responsible for the IDPs are either unable or unwilling to support them with any assistance or protection, meaning that they find themselves in extremely vulnerable situations. While the UNHCR has taken responsibility for some IDPs in the world, there is still a high number outside of their protection. Furthermore, as IDPs are not registered in the same way as refugees are and are not given the same legal status, figures on IDPs tend to be more unreliable than those concerning refugees.
Asylum seekers and opinions on refugees
Asylum seekers differ from both refugees and IDPs. They are people who apply for protection (asylum) in another country due to conflict, violence, or persecution in their home country, an application that can be accepted or rejected by the host country. Asylum seekers can also be granted the status of refugees under the UNHCR. The number of registered asylum applications annually peaked in 2015 when more than 2.3 million asylum applications were registered. In 2021, the United States registered the highest number of asylum seekers in the world, whereas the highest number of asylum seekers came from Afghanistan.Refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants are concepts that often are confused with each other and that continue to divide opinions around the world. While a refugee has a legal status and asylum seekers apply for protection in another country, an immigrant is simply a person who migrates from one country to another. Worldwide, a high share of people are positive towards the right of refugees to seek refuge from war or persecution in another country, but significantly fewer thought that their country should accept more refugees. Nevertheless, both refugees and IDPs are in an extremely vulnerable situation and require humanitarian aid and protection, and the increasing numbers the last years have put increasing pressure on organizations such as the UNHCR.
