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1. Lebanon: 21.8% of the total population
Lebanon, with a population of 6 million, currently hosts approximately 1.5 million refugees from Syria. The true figure is probably even higher because national authorities demanded that the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) stop registering new refugees in 2015. In addition, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees live in the country.
Lebanon itself has been devastated by a civil war that lasted from 1975 to 1990. It is a densely populated country with a fragile political balance between different ethnic and religious groups.
In 2019 and 2020, the situation has gone from bad to worse, with large-scale popular protests eventually leading to the resignation of the Prime Minister. Unemployment is through the roof and the country’s currency has fallen in value by 85 percent, which means that much of the population can no longer afford survival necessities. Recent surveys place more than 50% of the population below the poverty line. For Syrian refugees, the figure is even higher, with 83% living below the extreme poverty line.
Adding to an already difficult situation was the Covid-19 pandemic and the explosion in Beirut, which killed more than 200 people, injured more than 6,000 and displaced some 300,000.
Lebanon now has an urgent need for the rest of the world to step up and help the country that has assumed the greatest responsibility for helping displaced people.
The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) works to help refugees and displaced people in more than 30 countries around the world, including Lebanon, Jordan, Uganda, Djibouti and Sudan.
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2. Jordan: 10.7%
Jordan has received more than a million refugees in the last ten years. The vast majority were fleeing neighboring Syria. Some have been able to return or have traveled to other countries, but there are still 660,000 Syrian refugees living in Jordan today.
Unlike neighboring Lebanon, Jordan has established large refugee camps for Syrian refugees, which have been turned into small towns. These tend to be located in remote areas and consequently many refugees choose to try to find their own housing near the larger cities in the hope of being able to find work. This often results in clashes between refugees and the local population.
Jordan is also home to 2.3 million Palestinian refugees. These are people who fled or were expelled from their country during the Palestine War of 1947-49 and the Six Day War in 1967, and their descendants.
3. Turkey: 5.1%
Turkey has received more refugees than any other country since 2010, up to 4.3 million. Turkey is a large and populated country and is better equipped to meet the challenge than, for example, Lebanon. However, it is challenging to provide protection to such a large number of people in a few years.
Turkey signed an agreement with the European Union (EU) in 2016 that prevents refugees from moving to Europe. This has had serious consequences both for the refugees who have arrived in Greece and for those who remain in Turkey.
4. Liberia: 4.6%
Liberia is another country that has shown great hospitality to displaced people. It has received 230,000 refugees, even when the country itself was in a difficult situation.
Liberia went through a long and bloody civil war just a few years before opening its doors to refugees from the Ivory Coast. It was also hit hard by Ebola, which meant that refugees from the neighboring country were unable to return home as quickly as the UN refugee agency had planned.
5. Nauru: 4.1%
This small island state has received boat refugees trying to reach Australia when Australian authorities refused to accept them. The UN refugee agency has been highly critical of the agreement Australia has made with Nauru and other countries and is concerned about the reprehensible conditions in which the refugees live. Australia has now agreed to stop sending refugees to Nauru.
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