Mapping The World's Refugee Population

According to a report by the UNHCR, the number of people fleeing war, persecution and conflict exceeded 117 million in 2023. This number is up eight percent from the year before and increased by 31 percent compared to 2021.

62 percent of all refugees and people in need of internal protection originated from just five countries in late 2023, while the top 10 countries of origin accounted for more than 70 percent of the global total. As the following chart shows, Afghanistan has the highest number of displaced people outside of their home country at 6.40 million. Syrians are the second largest population displaced across borders, with 6.36 million living outside of the country. The latest count of displaced Ukrainians totaled 5.96 million people, the third-highest in the world. Meanwhile, violence, food shortages, and deteriorating conditions have been pushing South Sudanese to emigrate, with numbers rising from 2.2 million refugees in 2020 to 2.3 million at the end of 2023, almost all of whom are living in Uganda (923,607), Sudan (696,246), Ethiopia (418,231) and Kenya (171,233), according to the UNHCR.

In addition to a rise in the number of people being forced to flee their homes, these figures increased in 2021 due to the registration of new births, new estimations of displacements and updates following the backlog from 2020, as registration resumed in 2021 after being suspended due to Covid-19. The stark rise of Afghan refugees could be attributed to the situation in the country after the Taliban rose to power again in August 2021.