Pakistan bears largest refugee burden: UN report

A mammoth burden of the world's refugee population is being currently borne by poorer countries, a UN report has found, putting Pakistan with 1.9 million refugees at the top of the table.

The report released by UNHCR on World Refugee Day said that poor countries host 80 per cent of the world's refugees now living in developing countries.

With 1.9 million people, Pakistan has the largest refugee population followed by Iran and Syria with 1.07 million and 1.005 million respectively. "Fears about supposed floods of refugees in industrialised countries are being vastly overblown or mistakenly conflated with issues of migration," said Antonio Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, noting that there are worrying misperceptions about refugee movements.

"Meanwhile, it's poorer countries that are left having to pick up the burden," he added. The number of refugees in India was listed as 184,821 and in the United States 264,574.

The release of the report also marked the 60th anniversary of UNHCR.

Pakistan also feels that the biggest economic impact with 710 refugees for each dollar of its per capita gross domestic product (GDP), the report said.

The 2010 Global Trends report shows that 43.7 million people are now displaced worldwide - roughly equalling the entire populations of Colombia or the Republic of Korea .

The report said some refugees have been in exile for more than 30 years.