Today is World Refugee Day, and a report from the United Nations Refugee Agency gave new insight into the lives of black refugees.
Here are a few standout facts from the report:
1. South Sudan and Somalia are among the top five countries of origin for refugees, with 2.4 million refugees coming from South Sudan and 986,4000 refugees hailing from Somalia.
2. The internally displaced population in the Democratic Republic of Congo doubled to 1.9 million in 2017. The term "internally displaced person" refers to refugees who have left their homes, but have not or cannot leave their country.
There are 620,800 Congolese refugees in other countries. The DRC holds the second largest number of IDP in the world, behind Syria. South Sudan and Somalia come in third and fourth, respectively.
By April 2018, the DR #Congo hosted more than 541,000 refugees, and 4.5 million people were displaced inside the country.#WorldRefugeeDay
@UNOCHA
pic.twitter.com/mXcuwuRaI7— UNICEF DRC (@UNICEFDRC) June 20, 2018
3. Sub-Saharan Africa saw the greatest increase of refugees of any region. In the last year, the number of refugees in the region rose to 6.3 million refugees, a 20 percent increase over the previous year. The ongoing conflict in South Sudan contributed to this rise, with 1 million people fleeing their homes.
Sub-Saharan Africa is now home to 31 percent of the world's refugees.
4. Developing nations produce the most refugees, and seven of the top ten refugee-producing countries are on the African continent.
5. Developing nations also house the most refugees. The top ten countries refugees flee to include three African countries: Uganda, Sudan and Ethiopia.
6. The number of refugee returns have risen. Nigeria had the highest rate of repatriation in 2017 at 282,000 people. The Central African Republic came in second with 78,600 returns.
FG to begin repatriation of over 91,000 Nigerian refugees from Cameroon – Punch Newspapers https://t.co/7sOc5I96fl
pic.twitter.com/qEx05hyo4Y— Journal TV – All Nigeria News (@jtvnigeria) June 20, 2018
7. The majority of refugees are women and children. 51 percent of African refugees are women while 59 percent are children.