BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee

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Survey of Palestinian Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (2006-2007)
Table 2.2: Number of Convention Refugees, People of Concern to the UNHCR, and Internally Displaced Persons Worldwide, 2006
Year Convention Refugees a All Persons of Concern to the UNHCR b Total Number of IDPs in the world c
1950 – – –
1955 1,643,600 – –
1960 1,516,000 – –
1965 4,368,900 – –
1970 2,480,200 – –
1975 2,991,200 – –
1980 8,894,000 – –
1985 11,817,200 – –
1990 17,228,500 – 21,000,000
1995 14,573,600 26,103,000 22,000,000
2000 12,062,000 22,257,000 21,000,000
2003 9,671,800 17,000,000 24,600,000
2004 9,236,500 19,200,000 25,000,000
2005 8,700,000 21,000,000 23,700,000
2006 9,900,000 32,900,000 24,500,000
a. Convention refugees include all persons considered as refugees under the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. Convention
refugees include about 341,533 Palestinians classified as refugees in 2006, an unknown number of which are also included in Table 2.1 above,
due to possible overlap of registration with UNRWA and the UNHCR. UNHCR, 2006 Global Trends: Refugees, Asylum-seekers, Returnees,
Internally Displaced and Stateless Persons, Annexes, June 2007.
b. Persons of concern to the UNHCR include refugees (9.9 million), asylum-seekers (740,000), returned refugees (733,000), IDPs (12.8
million), stateless persons (5.8 million), returned internally displaced persons (1.8 million), and various other groups (1 million). See 2006
Global Trends: Refugees, Asylum-seekers, Returnees, Internally Displaced and Stateless Persons, June 2007, Annexes.
c. Statistics on the total number of IDPs for 2003–2006 were taken from the annually published Internal Displacement: A Global Overview
of Trends and Developments in 2006, Geneva: Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Norwegian Refugee Council, April 2007. No
comprehensive statistics are available from the period prior to 2000.
Data regarding Palestinian refugees of concern to the UNHCR refers to their country of origin as the “occupied
Palestinian territory.” This classification may not reflect the actual place of origin, and it is not possible to identify how
many Palestinian refugees of concern to the UNHCR are 1948 refugees, 1967 refugees, or Palestinians displaced from
former Palestine after 1967.
Estimates of the refugee population may also be derived from census data and population growth projections. Few host
countries carry out a regular census of their resident refugee population; and some do not include Palestinian refugees
as a category of refugees. Israel, for example, does not keep separate records of internally displaced Palestinians. 17 Some
countries, such as Jordan, include Palestinians as a census category, but this data is not publicly available. In North
America and Europe, Palestinian asylum-seekers are often included in a general category of “stateless” persons, or classified
according to their place of birth, or the host country that issued their travel documents.
Figure 2.1: Distribution of the Palestinian population worldwide by refugee status, 2006