Refugees are people who have fled from their country because of wars, political or religious conflicts or because they fear persecution from governments. Displaced people have lost their home but they remain in their own country.
Officially there are about 12 million refugees today. The peak was reached during the Balkan conflict of the 1990s, when almost 18 million people were refugees. About 70 % of the world’s refugee population is in Africa and the Middle East.
Over 800,000 people flee from their homes and become refugees every year. Most of them escape wars and conflicts in Africa and the Middle East. During 2011 thousands fled from North African dictatorships during what was called the Arab Spring. During 1994 hundreds of thousands of Rwandans escaped the genocide and terror in their country.
Afghanistan is the country with the most refugees, almost 3 million. Most Afghani refugees go to Pakistan. Germany is home to over 500, 000 Afghan citizens and over a quarter of a million have come to the United States.
Over one million people have left Iraq and Somalia. Sudan and Congo have about half a million refugees each. The United Nations also states there are over 10 million stateless people around the world, Kurds or Palestinians who do not belong to a certain country.
People do not become refugees only because of war or other political conflicts. As drought continues in the Horn of Africa over 12 million people are thought to be homeless or in refugee camps.
On the whole over 40 million people are considered to be homeless worldwide, according to the United Nations, mostly because of new conflicts . They are likely to stay refugees and not be able to go back to their homelands any time soon.