Interesting legal facts about REFUGEE :
- A refugee is a person who is outside his or her country of nationality and can’t return due to a well-founded fear of persecution because of his or her race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.
- Under international law, refugees are not allowed to be forced back to the countries they have fled.
- An asylum seeker is a person who is looking to be recognized as a refugee, but has not yet received formal refugee status. The most asylum seekers come from Pakistan and Iran.
- Internally displaced people (IDPs) are those who have been forced to leave their homes as a result of armed conflict, generalized violence or human rights violations. Unlike refugees they have not crossed an international border
- A total of 895,000 individual applications for asylum or refugee status were submitted to governments and UNHCR offices in 166 countries in 2011. Roughly 11% of these requests were fulfilled.