Poor Countries Host 80 per cent of World’s Refugees, UN Report Shows

An estimated 80 per cent of the world’s refugees now live in developing countries and yet anti-refugee sentiment is growing in many industrialized nations, the United Nations said in a report unveiled on 20th June 2011, urging the richer States to address the deep imbalance.

In relation to the size of their economies, poor countries shoulder a disproportionate refugee burden, according to the 2010 Global Trends report of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), released on World Refugee Day.

Pakistan, Iran, and Syria have the largest refugee populations at 1.9 million, 1.07 million, and 1.005 million respectively.

According to the statement of Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees fears about supposed floods of refugees in industrialized countries are being vastly overblown or mistakenly conflated with issues of migration. Meanwhile it’s poorer countries that are left having to pick up the burden.

For further details; http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=38767&Cr=refugees&Cr1